
SCHLOSS ELTZ. 



THE 



BRIDE OF THE RHINE. 



TWO HUNDRED MILES IN A MOSEL 
ROW-BOAT. 



GEO. E. 'WARING, Jr., 

Honorary Member of the Royal Institut^f Engineers of the Netherlands ; 
Corresponding Member of the Anferican Institute of Architects. 



TO WHICH IS ADDED 

A PAPER ON THE LATIN POET AUSONIUS AND HIS 
POEM "MOSELLA." 

- By CHARLES T. BROOKS. 



Reprinted ( with additions) from Scribbler's Monthly. 



BOSTON: 
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 
1878. 




Copyright, 1877. 
By GEORGE E. WARING, Jr 



All rights reserved. 



University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & 
Cambridge. 



FRANCIS A. STOUT, 

RECOGNITION OF A MOST CORDIAL AND VALUED 
FRIENDSHIP. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. Page 
The Mosel Valley 13 

CHAPTER II. 
"La Moselle" 21 

CHAPTER III. 
The Fortress City 39 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Upper Mosel 65 

CHAPTER V. 
Imperial Trier 82 

CHAPTER VI. 
From Trier to Bernkastel 120 

CHAPTER VII. 
Bernkastel 145 

CHAPTER VIII. 

MOSELWEIN l62 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 
From Bernkastel to Bad Bertrich . . . .170 

CHAPTER X. 
The Eifel 181 



CHAPTER XI. 
The Heart of the Mosel Valley .... 192 



CHAPTER XII. 

KOCHEM AND MOSELKERN 209 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Eastern Eifel 221 

CHAPTER XIV. 

SCHLOSS ELTZ 232 

CHAPTER XV. 
Last Days 241 

LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. .... 257 

THE RIVER MOSEL AND ITS OLD ROMAN 

POET 291 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Schloss Eltz . Frontispiece. 

Map-of the Mosel from the Meurthe to the Rhine Page 14, 15 

A Mosel Ferry 20 

General View of Nancy 22 

Fountain and Grille, Nancy 25 

Porte de la Craffe, Nancy 27 

Roman Aqueduct at Jouy 37 

Deutsches Thor, Metz 40 

From the Esplanade, Metz 42 

The Valley of Gravelotte 50 

Monument 1 and Graves, Gravelotte 52 

Towing up Stream 64 

Laundresses of the Mosel 66 

Fishing * K 76 

Roman Monument at Igel ....... 77 

The Porta Nigra, Trier 86 

Plan of the Porta Nigra 88 

Plan of the Basilica, Trier 90 



viii ILL USTRA TIONS. 

The Amphitheatre at Trier 93 

Plan of the Original Cathedral and Baptistery at Trier (as 

restored by Fergusson) 98 

Plan of the Present Cathedral of Trier, with the Lieb- 

frauenkirche and Cloister 101 

Enclosure to Choir, Trier Cathedral .... 103 

The " Rothes Ilaus " on the Market Square in Trier . 117 

The "Nancy" and her Crew ..... 123 

Twilight . . .124 

Bernkastel (from an old cut) 143 

A House-Front in Bernkastel 147 

An Old Court in Bernkastel 148 

A Mosel Kitchen 149 

Landshut, from the Diefbach Road . . . . 153 

Old Houses in Bernkastel 155 

Thai Veldenz 159 

Among the Vines 169 

Trarbach (before the fire) 171 

Grafinburg . . . . . . m . m .172 

Enkirch fy^ 

Marienburg 

Zell . ... . . . . . . . " . j 7 6 

Bad Bertrich jyg 

Old Church at Bertrich 190 

The River from Alf to Kochem .... 194, 195 

Neef 198 



ILL USTRA TIONS. ix 

Kloster Stuben 199 

Ediger (after Ernest George) 201 

Beilstein 203 

Kochem and Friedburg 20; 

Houses on the Quay at Kochem 210 

Klotten 215 

Toll-House at Karden 216 

Karden Church . . . . . . . . 217 

A Gateway at Karden 21& 

On the Shore at Karden 219 

Tower of Church at Munstermaifeld .... 223 

Schloss Biirresheim (near Mayen) .... 225 

Kloster Laach 229 

Bischoffstein . . ' 243 

Aiken 245 

Thuron 246 

Upper Castle at Gondorf 247 

Lower Castle at Gondorf 248 

St Matthias Kapelle, Kobern 249 

St. Matthias 250 

Plan of St. Matthias . 251 

Clustered Column at St. Matthias .... 252 

After the Vintage 255 




„ltnb cmd) beine SBiege jefet 
©euftt unter frembem ; 
Dfc toalfdje ©au 1 n bent <3trom aud) ne^t, 
2)eutf« Metfft bu, SKofei, bod>; 
£)eutfdj tfl ja betneS fftamen§ Saut, 
Deutfd) ifl betn golbner 2Bem ; 
Dent beutfd^en 9ttjetn Btft bu getraut, 

2) eutfd) toirft bu ettig fein ! 

Unb ttemt etnft unfer @$la$tfdjtt>erbt flint 
3m lefcten, fjetFgen Strett, 

3) ann, beutfd&e gelfenjungfrau, tinrb 
9ludj betne 2Dteg 1 kfrett. 

(Sin bcnnemb £0$ au3 cotter 23rufi 
(Erfung 1 ntm §tmntel laut, 
2>ir, fcpnem, beutfdjem SDTofeTjfront, 
£)tr, beutfc£)en !Rf>etne^ ^BrautJ 1 




CHAPTER I. 




THE MOSEL VALLEY. 



^OME years ago, on a dark and 
damp November day, we saw the 
Mosel from the deck of the little 
steamer that runs from Trier to 
Koblenz. Then followed the 
*\ stirring and changing scenes 
of rapid travel beyond. 
Later, the seeds of memory then planted had 
grown so strongly, and the recollection of the 
Mosel so far overshadowed much else that we 
had seen, that its invitation to a more careful 
exploration was not to be resisted. From this 
second visit came the impressions which I shall 
here endeavor to convey. 

The Mosel, "the pearl of German rivers/' 



14 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



skirts along the projecting edges of the nine- 
teenth century, — which has intruded upon it in 
northeastern France and in a corner of Luxem- 
burg ; which whirls unheeding past its embou- 
chure at the Rhine ; and which has so lately 
torn its peaceful valley with the unwonted ruin 
of modern warfare from Metz to Pont-a-Mousson. 
Everywhere else, the dancing currents and the 



IN* A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 1 5 




THE MOSEL FROM THE MEURTHE TO THE RHINE. 



peaceful lake-like stretches of the river wind their 
sinuous way through a placid mediaeval world. 

Metz and Trier have been touched by the rail- 
way, which has somewhat torn the veil from over 
them ; but even they have held out bravely, and, 
once beyond their gates, we wander again in the 
charmed light of the Middle Ages. 



i6 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Among grand old hillsides, crowned with the 
homes of the robber knights and clad with their 
immemorial vineyards ; among old villages in the 
valleys, wherein a time-honored simplicity still 
holds its sway ; among hills around which Old 
World legends cluster; and in valleys where all 
is peace and plenty and content, — here we roam 
in a dreamy, blissful, antiquated land, where the 
best that nature can do for hill and dale greets 
us at every step, and where the work of Art's 
best days lies softened by Time's lightest touch. 

I have seen no country equal to the Mosel 
Valley for the peculiar charm that comes of 
antiquity, made real by an appropriate human 
life. On every hand in European travel we are 
running parallel with much that is curious and 
quaint, and at every turn we may elbow odd- 
looking peasants, who are doing odd things in 
odd ways. We leave a modern hotel to stroll 
out for a downward look upon the bonneted 
women of the market-place, and to sniff for a 
moment the aroma of traditional and peculiar 
customs. Arriving by rail with a busy throng 
of people of our own time, we ask for our tele- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



17 



grams, and betake ourselves to the comforts of 
our well-appointed inn, marvelling, perhaps, at a 
remnant of fast-fleeting provincial costume that 
our shrewd caterer has captured to set off the 
service of his table d'hote. We see at each step, 
it may be, something of the novelty of old age,— 
in buildings, in shop windows, in sign-boards, in 
the people themselves. But all this is usually 
only in the eddies of a full-flowing modern tide. 
Quaint gables peep out modestly beneath the 
shadow of modern warehouses, the carillon jingles 
its sweet tune in alternation with the steam- 
whistle, costumes are fast shrinking to the rear 
of the modern-dressed crowd, and we everywhere 
feel fhat the occasional quaintness we so gladly 
hail is, after all, but an element (and a decreas- 
ing one) in a life that is more and more the 
life of to-day, — the life, let us say, which we pre- 
fer to live, but not that which it most interests 
us to watch as we travel. 

Beneath the towering hillsides of the Mosel, 
and along its fertile and well-grown intervale, we 
have two hundred miles of unmixed, unspoiled, 
uninterrupted Old World life. Not only in the 



i8 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



market-place, but in the streets, in the houses, in 
the shops, at the hotel table, in the fields and along 
the country roads, we have little else. A single 
month's immersion in this medium of remoteness 
and antiquity exalts us above all the carking 
Cares of modern life, and makes the world we 
know so well seem, to the last degree, unreal. 
Letters from home come like messages from an- 
other and an unfamiliar sphere. Newspapers are 
forgotten, and we instinctively shun all that may 
awaken us from our pleasant dream. 

We rise up and we lie down among a people who 
have — and who care to have — no faintest trace 
of exciting enterprise. They are the descendants 
of the village peasants of the Gothic age ; they 
live with Gothic simplicity and frugality in the 
irregular and leaning, but still charming, houses 
with which their forefathers strung the shores 
of their beautiful river. Educated beyond the 
standard of the working-people of New England, 
and shrewd and intelligent in their way, they find 
in their peaceful habits, and in the constant socia- 
bility and cheerfulness that come of their village 
life, the full satisfaction of their modest desires. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



19 



. We do not envy them ; we have no desire to 
be of them ; but to be with them, and with them 
only, for weeks together, carries us back to a his- 
toric epoch that is full of historic charm. In the 
library we may wander away to the old days in 
our unhindered imagination. Along the banks 
of the Mosel we wander there in person, and 
feel and see and touch in actual life the real 
movement of an age which elsewhere is past. 

So far is this true, that it almost seems amiss 
to describe this river and its people in the lan- 
guage of our own daily intercourse. The stream 
acquires for us the personality which is recog- 
nized in the speech of those who live beside it. 
They- never speak of it as "the river, ,, "the 
water,'' or " the stream," but always as " the Mo- 
sel." They wash in the Mosel, they fish in the 
Mosel, they row on the Mosel, and in all their 
relations with it they hold it in this individual 
light. The Rhine is a river, a brook is a brook, 
but the Mosel is " the Mosel " always. 

Moselwein and the Moselthal stand alone in 
the regard of the Moselfolk; and, especially as 
they have rarely seen more of the outer world 



20 THE MOSEL IN A ROW-BOAT. 



than may be seen from the peaks of the Eifel, or 
from the heights of the Hunsriick, one cannot 
wonder at their concentrated respect. 

However, the minor key of rhapsody, that a 
sunny and moonlit September in this gentle land 
incites, suggests only an emotional impression, 
whose justification calls for the facts and figures 
of conventional speech. 




A MOSEL FERRY. 



CHAPTER II. 



" LA MOSELLE." 

HE sources of the river lie far up in the 
Vosges Mountains, in Alsace and Lor- 
raine, and it is not the least of the sen- 
timental achievements of the late invasion of 
France, that Otto's prophecy has come true, and 
that " the battle sword's clash in the last holy 
strife has' freed the German rock-maidens cra- 
dle." 

The plan of our journey forbade the seeking 
of the sources of the river, and led us to see but 
hastily the historic environs of its upper waters. 
Of what lies above its junction with the Meurthe, 
at Frouard, we learned little more than the books 
tell. We left the train at Nancy, five miles up 
the Meurthe. Our plan was here to buy a row- 
boat, with which to make, leisurely and comfort- 




22 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



ably, the whole distance to the Rhine, but we 
learned that the frequent gates of the canaliza- 
tion, and the utter absence of current, would 
make the early miles tedious and unsatisfactory, 




GENERAL VIEW OF NANCY. 



so we travelled like respectable modern tourists 
as far as Metz. 

Nancy is a charming town. As Brussels sug- 
gests a little Paris, so Nancy suggests a little 
Brussels. It is largely new, and entirely clean, 
cheerful, well-kept, and comme il faut. One 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



23 



might pass an hour pleasantly at its hotel, and 
depart with the next train, carrying away the 
impression of a sweet little city without one re- 
markable feature. But it is impossible that even 
a modern city (and Nancy is only eight hundred 
years old) can have grown up in Europe without 
accumulating points of attraction and of charm, 
of which one who has passed his life in a new 
country can never tire. 

Nancy was a sop thrown to Stanislas, — a buffer 
to his fall from the throne of Poland, — and he 
seems to have accepted it in the most frank and 
manly way, and to have found here an ample and 
welcome field for good works. If one may be- 
lieve the record of his monument (and its proof 
lies on every side), he was, in his small way, one 
of the wisest and best of rulers. 

Much of the record of the old Dukes of Lor- 
raine was destroyed during the improvements of 
Stanislas, and the town, as one sees it, dates back 
only a century and a half, — not long enough for 
fine buildings to grow old, and not too long for 
fine plantations to remain beautiful. The public 
park, the Pepiniere, is not large (forty acres), and 



24 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



it has no striking feature ; but it is as calm and 
peaceful and shady a little playground for a little 
city as one could wish to see. The element of 
flirtation and tender sauntering is forbidden by 
French custom, and it is a loss ; but children, 
and young girls with their bonnes or their mammas 
— the elders always indulging in the " concealed 
indolence of knitting," — give enough life for social 
attractiveness. The planting is simple, dignified, 
and good, ■ — less " pretty " than one expects to 
see French planting, and in restful and quiet ac- 
cord with the broad meadows, the splendid trees, 
and the distant blue hills. Its approach is 
through " La Carriere," the old tilting-ground of 
the Knights of Lorraine, — where the ancient 
chronicles describe Jeanne d'Arc as riding a tilt 
with the horse and armor she received from the 
king. Thence the Arc de Triomphe leads to 
the Place Stanislas. This is a generous square 
containing the Polish king's monument, and sur- 
rounded by some of the best buildings of his 
reign. Its angles are cut off with gilded iron- 
work grilles (forged by Stanislas' locksmith, Jean 
Lamour), which are still beautiful in their way as 



IN A M OS EL ROW-BOAT. 



27 



when they left his hand. These grilles enclose 
monumental fountains. 

In the old town 
wall stands one of the ;. ; -u 
strong gates of the old 
city, the Porte de la 
Craffe, with the double 
cross of Lorraine over 
its pointed archway. 
The architecture, the 
history, the library, 
and the museum of 
Nancy would be wor- 
thy of notice in a more 
extended sketch ; and, 
as a farmer, I must stop even here to pay my 
respects to the monument of Matthieu de Dom- 
basle, one of the earliest and best of French 
agricultural writers. It stands near his imple- 
ment factory, still carried on by his grandson. 

Our two sunny August days in Nancy w r ere 
spent at the Hotel de France, where we followed, 
as guests, the sisters of Louis XVI., Josephine 
Beauharnais (first as the wife of General Bona- 




PORTE DE LA CRAFFE, NANCY. 



28 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



parte and last as Empress), and other historic 
characters without number, ending with the 
Prince Frederick William, who hung his Prus- 
sian standard above its door in 1870. 

This is a very favorable example of the pro- 
vincial French hotel, with its rooms opening on 
a court, where one sees the pea-shelling and dish- 
washing of the well-appointed adjacent kitchen. 
Its table is characteristic and good. We had, 
at noon, a breakfast of pigs' feet, smelts, mutton- 
chops with potatoes, and other meat (disguised), 
cray-fish, cold chicken with salad, tarts, and 
fruit. For dinner, at six: 1. soup, two kinds; 
2. bouilli with cucumber salad ; 3. roast veal ; 4. 
salmi of duck ; 5. fish ; 6. string-beans ; 7. com- 
pote ; 8. fruit ad libitum, and cakes. 

I trust that these details of daily experience 
will have the interest for my readers that such 
details in books of travel have always had for 
me. However much we may be impressed by 
what is grand or curious in a foreign town, that 
w r hich appeals most directly to our sensations is 
the peculiarity of the daily life of its people. 

I am fond of haunting early markets, and I 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



2 9 



found that at Nancy particularly attractive, — 
above all, for the remarkable supply of fruits, in 
which the beautiful surrounding country is es- 
pecially productive. We saw at the very end 
of August, overrunning the commonest market- 
stands and baskets, strawberries, raspberries, 
blackberries, gooseberries, plums in great va- 
riety and of splendid quality, pears, peaches, ap- 
ples, almonds, filberts, walnuts, and many sorts of 
grapes, all in profusion and all very cheap. 

I took my early coffee in a second-story cafe 
with market-women and girls, — simple, tidy, re- 
spectful, and self-respecting people. The coffee 
was excellent, and was served with sugar and 
boiled milk in bowls or soup-plates, and with 
tablespoons. It was, in fact, a coffee soup into 
which was broken as much bread as it would 
saturate, — good, wholesome, toothsome French 
bread at that. The price was four sous (cents) 
per portion. Most of the women had clubbed 
together and bought loaves of bread, which they 
divided, paying for their sweetened coffee and 
milk only two sous. There was only a single 
room, with two rows of clean board tables, and 



30 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



in one corner a neat stove of polished iron and 
brass, and bright tiles, on which the coffee and 
milk were cooked in polished copper caldrons. 
It was a contrast to the coffee-stands about Wash- 
ington Market in New York. 

We drove for four hours in a ramshackle old 
trap, with a cheerful, ragged, and intelligent 
driver, who showed and explained to us all the 
sights in and about the city for a total charge 
of ten francs. We bought specimens of Nancy 
porcelain and decorated glassware, and regretted 
that we had not time to rummage the little vil- 
lages of the neighborhood, which are said to be 
stored with good accumulations of antique Lor- 
raine ware. 

As is so often the case in travelling, we won- 
dered why this would not be a good resort for 
economical Americans desiring to live pleas- 
antly and cheaply ; but we were told that the 
living, although cheap as compared with our 
own, is quite as expensive as similar living in 
Paris, — which, away from the foreigners' quar- 
ter, is still cheap, — and that the attractions, 
entertainments, and facilities for study, though 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



3* 



good, are incomparably less here than there. 
However, Nancy is a very good point for edu- 
cation, is very salubrious, and has an agreeable 
climate. 

On Tuesday we left at noon, and drove down 
the Meurthe and Mosel valleys to Pont-a-Mous- 
son, about twenty miles, a lovely drive of two 
hours and a half, over a road lying mainly high 
enough for a good view of the valley, but wind- 
ing and undulating, and, under such a sky as 
favored us, to the last degree delightful. 

The many wayside villages were a great draw- 
back. They are long, low, and dirty ; ploughs, 
wagons, and manure-heaps almost invariably oc- 
cupy the whole house-front. It seemed incom- 
prehensible that French people could occupy 
such habitations. The front windows of the 
houses gave no idea of pleasant living within. 
The people themselves, children and all, seemed 
comfortably clad and cheerful, and all very in- 
dustrious, as we everywhere saw in the fields 
between the villages, where they were at work. 

Pont-a-Mousson is a quaint old town lying on 
both sides of the Mosel, with a fine bridge, and 



32 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



with a striking cathedral and school facing the 
river. The public square is not a square, but 
a triangle, surrounded by arcades, all old and 
quaint, and one corner is picturesque, with a 
pointed pepper-box tower. This was formerly an 
imperial city, with a brilliant university, founded 
in the beginning of the tenth century by Charles 
III. We found a decent hotel, clean and good, 
and with a capital white-capped man cook, who 
took our orders in person, and whose kitchen, 
with its bright utensils, opened directly on the 
main hall, and was a chief ornament of the 
house. 

After dinner I went into the cafe for coffee and 
a pipe. Here the landlady presides. I found 
her intelligent and chatty, and we had a long 
talk, developing these facts : The peasants are 
prosperous, and the laboring-people well paid and 
happy. There is little or no emigration because 
of this universal prosperity, and of a combina- 
tion of habits of industry and love of home, 
which keeps young and old profitably engaged 
in the cultivation of their own little fields, or 
working for hire in the regular receipt of good 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



33 



wages. We had seen very old women working 
in the fields ; this is rarely, if ever, from neces- 
sity, for the older peasants are usually more 
than well-to-do, but work is a habit and a neces- 
sity of their lives. 

The town, she told me, was occupied for three 
years by a garrison of eighteen thousand Prus- 
sians, which, emotionally considered, was ex- 
tremely sad. During the first three days these 
invaders plundered many houses which had been 
entirely abandoned by their owners, but they 
entered no occupied houses, and molested no 
person. After these three days regular order 
was established and maintained, and the troops 
were always respectful to the people, and always 
paid well for everything that they had. Evi- 
dently they had been detested, — and respected, 
— throughout their whole stay. 

Thus much of Lorraine has been left to France, 
and Pont-a-Mousson is its outlying military 
post, garrisoned by a tolerably well-looking regi- 
ment of Hussars. 

The queer old town is surrounded by a prome- 
nade occupying the site of its ancient wall, — a 



34 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



promenade especially curious for its beautiful 
allee of horse-chestnut-trees, which are pecul- 
iarly suited for this use, losing entirely their nat- 
ural rounded form, and growing tall and close, 
with deep green foliage that contrasts well with 
the black trunks and branches. They are not 
finer than our own superb rows of old elms, 
but they are finer than anything else of the sort 
I have seen in Europe. 

Two miles away, on the top of a steep hill, 
stands the ruin of the old fortress of Mousson ; 
a fortress without a history, and a ruin from 
traditional times. It encloses within its walls 
a queer little village of about two hundred in- 
habitants, and a curious village church. The 
climb to Mousson is not easy, but it is wonder- 
fully well-rewarded with a view — from beyond 
Nancy to the other side of Metz — of one of 
the most fruitful and carefully cultivated val- 
leys in the world, a valley combining beauty 
of hill and plain, of hamlet and city, of village 
and castle, of field and forest, and, as I saw 
it, of bright sunshine and the wafted shadows 
of fleecy clouds. Through all this threads the 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



35 



winding course of the young Mosel, picking up 
its reinforcement of hillside brooks from point to 
point along its way. 

The hills bounding the valley are almost moun- 
tains, sometimes crowned with rich forests, and 
sometimes cultivated to their very summits. Now 
in the valley, now on the hillside, and now high up 
almost among the clouds, one sees on every hand 
the villages in which the agricultural population 
are gathered. Through one gap of the high 
immemorial wall of the fortress are seen the 
Cathedral at Metz and the frowning Fort St. 
Quentin that commands it. From the opposite 
side appear the hills about Nancy and those far 
up toward Toul. 

With the glass I examined some of the villages 
that had impressed us so disagreeably as we 
drove through them, and found that they were 
simply " turned wrong side out." We had driven 
through barn-yards and back-door yards, between 
the parallel lines of houses. These at their oppo- 
site sides seemed invariably to open, with porch 
and vine-clad trellis, upon well-kept gardens, 
studded with trees and shrubs and vegetables, 



36 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



and surrounded with walls covered with espaliers, 
Quite generally these villages stand on the sum- 
mit of knolls or hills, and their living-room win- 
dows must command beautiful outlooks. Many 
of them, as seen from this point, are attractive 
enough ; but what influences ever led the human 
mind to continue the Fortress of Mousson as the 
site for a village it is hard to guess, for its people 
are all farmers, whose fields lie very far below 
them, and their crops must be hauled with im- 
mense toil up the rugged way, whose inacces- 
sible steeps doubtless tempted the founder of 
the castle. 

On the first day of September we went (igno- 
miniously, by rail) to Metz, getting only that 
fleeting view of the country with which travellers 
by rail are always tantalized. At the frontier 
station we found the German custom-house to 
be by no means the trifling and pleasantly formal 
affair we had been led to expect. Not only was 
the scrutiny, especially in the case of local trav- 
ellers, very close, but duty was demanded on the 
most absurd articles of personal property ; among 
other things, on a well-worn steel instrument. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



37 



Here the train is transferred from French to 
German control, and every compartment of every 
carriage is handed over to its new guard with a 
recorded account of its dilapidation, subsequent 
injury being chargeable to the German authori- 
ties. 

As we halted at Jouy-aux-Arches, we struck 
the line of the old Roman aqueduct, by which the 
Roman city of Divodurum-Medio-Matricorum was 



THE ROMAN AQUEDUCT AT JOUY. 



supplied with water from the distant hills, — an 
aqueduct sixty feet high and from twelve to fif- 
teen feet wide, long ago destroyed ; and latterly, 



38 



THE MOSEL IN A ROW-BOAT 



on the eastern side of the river, plastered up and 
made hideous. On the west, the old piers and 
arches stand, in their overgrown and dilapidated 
condition, an interesting monument of the Ro- 
mans, who possessed the valley for so many cen- 
turies, until the Franks broke up their dominion 
and founded the Germanic civilization on their 
ruins. As with so many of the monuments of 
Continental antiquity, the Devil is said to have 
had a hand in the building of this aqueduct. 
Recently, the engineers of Metz, in seeking a 
suitable water-supply, found no better source than 
the old one of the Romans. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FORTRESS CITY. 

S a matter of principle, — and especially 
as a matter of economy, — I rarely avail 
myself of the advantages offered by first- 
class hotels, and had determined on putting up 
in Metz at a little French house, the Hotel de 
Paris ; but the chatty landlady at Pont-a-Mous- 
son received this suggestion with such an expres- 
sive shrug of the shoulders, and spoke so highly 
of the Hotel de TEurope, that my determination 
was overruled, and we drove to this imposing 
and well-placed caravansary, where we were sub- 
jected to three days of uninterrupted discipline 
for having abandoned a fixed rule. The house is 
detestably " first-class." It offered us a very 
ordinary table and no especial comfort, and only 
one opportunity for receiving due attention from 




40 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



the domestics, — as they presented themselves, a 
row of greedy-eyed petitioners, when we took our 
leave. However, the situation of the house had 
its decided advantages, and we were glad to be so 
much in the company of the better class of the 




about Metz for the autumn manoeuvres. 

Metz is an extremely attractive town. Its for- 
tifications, Vauban's best work, which are of the 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT, 



41 



first class and in active occupation, are very in- 
teresting. Its cathedral, with a long, unobstructed 
high nave and beautiful clustered columns, is most 
impressive. 

The lower quarter of the town is very quaint 
and interesting, and its Deutsches Thor is one of 
the most picturesque of mediaeval fortifications. 
Walking toward this gate, we Were attracted by 
the following sign : — 

Pferde Metzgerei 
Boucherie Cavaline. 

In the neat-looking shop so indicated, a tidy 
young Frenchwoman presided over sides and quar- 
ters and steaks of abundant horse-flesh. 

In the streets we met singularly furnished 
trucks, labelled, " Bains a la domicile, 1.20 francs " ; 
which, being interpreted, means, that for twenty- 
four cents you may have a bath in your own 
house. One of the two portable bath-tubs car- 
ried by the vehicle is filled from its barrel of water 
and heated by its stove and boiler, and then 
brought into your house and removed after your 
ablutions. You call a bath-wagon, as in England 
you would call a bath-chair, pay the tariff, have 



42 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



the preparations made in front of your door, and 
thus publicly announce to your curious neighbors 
the frequency of your personal cleansing. 

All else that Metz has to offer is eclipsed in 
unique interest by its remarkably beautiful Es- 
planade, a pleasure-ground reaching to the edge of 
its highest fortification, and overlooking the broad 




FROM THE ESPLANADE. 



plains that border the winding river and stretch 
far away to the feet of the enclosing hills, — hills 
rich with country-seats and with well-kept farms 
and vineyards. Here, amid beautiful planting 
and in the presence of cooling fountains, crowds 
of people of all classes assemble for their sunset 
lounging and chatting, and one can readily under- 
stand how the Esplanade of Metz, seconded by a 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



43 



capital public library and a museum that would 
almost be the despair of the largest American 
town, led many a wanderer in its old days of 
French rule to settle here for a final period of 
sensible, pleasant, and sociable living. 

The war, and the changes caused by the Ger- 
man occupation, have driven away a very large 
element of the old French population, and the 
city has been immeasurably saddened and made 
more practical and less interesting by their loss. 

It was curious to learn in what manner, and 
to what degree, this change had taken place. 
We found that the sentiment of national hostility 
had had full sway, and that nearly all who were 
not tied to Metz by their interests or their duties 
had sought residence elsewhere in France. Those 
who remain refuse all open intercourse with the 
conqueror, who, on his side, is clearly urging 
his position by justice, liberality, and outward 
indifference. At first, the bands of the German 
regiments played regularly at the afternoon gath- 
ering on the Esplanade, as the bands of the 
French had done during the years before; but the 
first strain of their excellent performance set the 



44 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



whole assemblage to flight. It was one thing 
to enjoy what France and nature had done for 
the pleasure-ground of Metz, but quite another 
to accept what Germany offered. Teutonic grav- 
ity and good sense were quite equal to the occa- 
sion, and the result was simply this, — the bands 
ceased to play ; if the people did not want music, 
they need not have it. Efforts to establish a 
German theatre have met the same fate; "les 
Messins " would not patronize the German thea- 
tre, so they forego their evening entertainment, 
and, as a Frenchman told us, Metz has now 
become triste, " there is absolutely no distrac- 
tion/ — and what is life to a Frenchman with- 
out " distraction " ? 

I took much pains to inquire into the condi- 
tion of the people before and after the surrender, 
obtaining a very satisfactory account from the 
landlord of the despised, but good, Hotel de 
Paris, with whom, as he received my letters, I 
had daily chats. He had the national prejudices 
of his race against "les Prussiens," but frankly 
confessed that their conduct was unobjection- 
able, and that they would make beneficent rulers 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



45 



for the people. During the latter weeks of the 
siege the greatest disorder had prevailed ; disci- 
pline had been practically abandoned, and affairs 
were daily going from bad to worse. Officers 
and men frequented his restaurant on terms of 
familiarity, no deference being shown. Private 
soldiers would order and consume whatever suited 
their fancy, and make no pretence of paying ; 
a drunken soldier would overturn his glass into 
the lap of an officer sitting next him at table 
without so much as asking pardon. This poor 
landlord had been in a fair way of being eaten 
out of house and home, and his mental condi- 
tion had evidently bordered on insanity. The 
morning after the surrender he was surprised 
at daybreak by a well-dressed lieutenant of Ger- 
man infantry knocking modestly at his door, and, 
with his hand to his cap, asking permission to 
enter and order his breakfast, for which he paid 
well, as have all his successors ever since. So 
far as I could judge, the ill-feeling is purely a 
sentimental one, but, sentimentally considered, it 
does not lack food for its sustenance ; for ex- 
ample, over the gateway of a former Jesuit col- 



4 6 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



lege adjoining a church is the inscription, Kai- 
serliche Lutheranische Seminar. 

It must be irritating, too, to a sensitive French- 
man to see the indifferent and triumphant, though 
far from insolent, air with which the German 
officers and men deport themselves in the streets, 
not looking down upon the French citizens, but 
simply not regarding them at all. A small 
amount of palpable injustice or meanness would 
be a real relief to those who are now compelled 
to nourish their ill-will mainly from the imagi- 
nation. 

Our visit was particularly well-timed for an 
observation of the condition of a large detach- 
ment of the German army, nearly all the regi- 
ments of that portion of Germany having gath- 
ered here for the autumn field manoeuvres. The 
uniforms of the different states vary materially, 
and some of them are much decorated. None 
equal, in simplicity, elegance, and dignity, that 
of Prussia, It is almost as plain as our own, 
with all the difference that there is between 
good and bad. The rank and file have the great 
advantage over French soldiers, that their gar- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT, 



47 



ments are made with some reference to the size 
and proportions of those who are to wear them, 
so that even a squad of privates on fatigue duty 
look like soldiers who have been properly cared 
for. At parade, the appearance of these men 
is admirable ; they are well set up, supple, clean, 
close-cropped, well dressed, and well kept. To 
such a degree is this true, that the one-year men 
are hardly distinguishable at dress parade. 

These one-year men are an interesting element 
of the German army. By an inflexible law, every 
man, of whatever rank and station in life, must 
perform his regular military service. If not pro- 
fessionally an officer of the regular army, though 
he be a prince's son, he must serve in the ranks 
and take his regular duty with men drawn from 
the peasantry. He has this relief (and so has the 
peasant), that if he can pass a very severe exami- 
nation as to educational requirements, and can 
defray the expenses of his living, uniform, and 
full equipments, he can complete his active ser- 
vice in one year ; and he has, as I am informed, 
the certainty that his subsequent duties will be 
as an officer of Landwehr. 



4 8 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



The one-year man is very noticeable. An 
officer has his position secured by his insignia 
of rank, but the gentleman who is serving as 
a private soldier can distinguish himself from 
his ignoble associates only by a degree of super- 
refinement in man-millinery, such as is hardly 
to be found elsewhere ; and a sergeant of infantry 
loitering in the balcony of a theatre, in the finest 
broadcloth, neatest boot, cleanest shave, and 
most delicate glove that nineteenth-century art 
can produce, is, probably, the tidiest and nat- 
tiest individual that our age has developed. 

In spite of his ability thus to announce his 
inherent superiority to his position, his position 
must be far from happy, for, however kindly 
and pleasantly he may be regarded by his offi- 
cers when off duty, his life in his company must 
be to the last degree trying. Even German 
officers have that regard for the good-will of 
their commands that must often lead them to 
emphasize the fact that they show these favored 
troops no partiality, and this implies occasional 
undue severity. The men themselves take full 
advantage of their facilities for neutralizing in the 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



49 



intercourse of the barracks and of fatigue service, 
the obvious difference shown when on furlough. 
Doubtless, with all its annoyance, and all its 
expense, the service of a single year is vastly to 
be preferred to the ordinary three-years term, 
and it is no slight benefit that the country is to 
derive from the intimate relation into which 
nearly all of its higher classes are thrown, for 
an uninterrupted year (at a time when habits 
of thought are being formed), with the repre- 
sentatives of the foundation grades of society. 

The sort of attraction that draws visitors at 
Brussels to the field of Waterloo is much more 
active at Metz, in leading the traveller toward 
Gravelotte. The cabmen of the city were, of 
course, all hotly engaged in the thickest of the 
fight, and they are, perhaps, as good guides as one 
ever finds for a battle-field. Ours (French) had 
in some way or other acquired a tolerably intel- 
ligent knowledge of the movements, and by 
checking his account with a good map and with 
official reports, we formed some conception of 
the great battle that decided the fate of the 
French Empire. 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



The drive out over the Pont des Morts, — 
which Louis Napoleon avoided when he last 
left Metz, — and through the peaceful country 
and villages toward the heights of Le Point du 
Jour, one of the most important of the French 




THE VALLEY OF GRAVELOTTE. 



positions, gives a good general idea of the terri- 
tory which the French had to defend. The road 
soon descends from the high plain, and then 
drops somewhat steeply into the valley of Grave- 
lotte, — a valley of the shadow of death to so 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT 



5* 



many thousands of both armies. The position 
may be considered as naturally unimpregnable, 
and we were shown the point to which, as though 
by a miracle, the foremost Uhlan had pressed 
only to meet his fate. One could not help con- 
sidering what a vast amount of life and suffer- 
ing would have been saved, had the French had 
a single regiment of American backwoodsmen 
with axes. It would have been only the work 
of an hour to form an abatis that would have 
prevented even an attempt on the position. We 
asked our driver how it had been possible for 
the Germans to make any head against the 
French up such a steep, wooded hillside. He 
ascribed it to the "hourra!" of the Germans, 
which a later conversation with an officer led 
me to think had sometimes more influence than 
the warlike onset itself, in shaking the firmness 
of the French lines. 

This is no place for a description of the battle, 
nor do even the official reports leave it possible 
for one to write a description that would be un- 
questioned by participators in the action ; but 
no one can follow the long road that leads from 



52 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



point to point, with field and wall and every 
building full of the indications of a desperate 
life-and-death struggle, without admiring almost 
equally both of the armies engaged, and becom- 
ing impressed with the slightness of the differ- 
ence in power and endurance that finally decided 




MONUMENT AND GRAVES ; BATTLE-FIELD OF GRAVELOTTE. 



the fortune of the terrible day. The French, in 
spite of their defeat, have rarely earned, even in 
their most brilliant victory, a better right to mili- 
tary renown than on this lost field ; and even 
the army that made the assault on the heights of 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



53 



Spichern rarely made such a desperate attempt 
as that from which the French so hardly held 
it back in the steep-sided Schlucht von Grave- 
lotte and at St. Hubert. 

The guide-books give a reasonably good idea 
of this battle, but no one can appreciate its des- 
perate character who does not examine its posi- 
tions for himself, and see with his own eyes how 
thickly the whole broad country is strewn, for 
miles and miles, with the groups of monumental 
crosses, and how frequent are the elaborate mon- 
uments that mark the actions of bodies of troops 
and the burial-places of distinguished men. 
Then, too, these crosses do not indicate, as in a 
cemetery, the resting-place of a single person, 
but a trench, into which, under the fierce heat of 
August, piles of fallen men were indiscriminately 
hurried. One cross bears the inscription, „|)ter 
ruljen in ©ott 29 ^rcufeen uni> 69 ^ranjufen."* 
And on every hand similar records show how 
enormous had been the slaughter. 

Every village and every country-seat along ten 

* " Here rest in God twenty-nine Prussians and sixty-nine 
Frenchmen. " 



54 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



or fifteen miles of our road had been loop-holed 
for musketry and battered, often to ruin, with 
artillery. Questioning an old relic-seller as to 
the genuineness of her buckles and bullets and 
helmet spikes, she said : " Ah ! my God, we do 
not need to counterfeit these ; we had two 
days' fighting here, and we dig more relics than 
potatoes." 

As we drove home by another road, which 
gave us a better view of Fort St. Quentin, it 
seemed the last marvel of Gravelotte that Bazaine 
should have still held this wonderful work, and 
have left his enemy in peaceful possession of 
their hard-earned field. 

The question of the treason of this general 
reaches much farther than the tourist's ken, but, 
whatever his motive and whatever his conduct, 
one regards him very leniently in view of the fact 
that he has left to the beautiful old city of Metz 
so much of inestimable value that must have 
been destroyed had he awaited the bombardment 
that was impending. 

After this day's trip we looked with even more 
than our former interest upon the modest-man- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



55 



nered and often gentle-looking officers of the 
successful army, who were enjoying their evening 
coffee and cigars at the little tables on the hotel 
terrace. In spite of much dignity, and a some- 
what cautious reserve, they are very sociable, 
light-hearted, and happy-looking men ; but the 
prominent fact of official position seems never 
to leave their consciousness. As cordial comrades 
approach each other, it is an invariable rule that 
the officer formally salutes the officer ; only after 
that do the friends shake hands. 

Retaining, from ten years before, an active in- 
terest in whatever pertains to cavalry service, 
I accosted a group of officers and asked how I 
might see a mounted regiment at drill. I was 
referred to the commanding officer, whose name 
sounded like Streit. I hesitatingly asked whether 
it was spelled Oehreit, and was corrected with the 
more familiar Wright. I was directed where to 
find him with the more than courteous anxiety 
that Prussian officers always seem to feel that 
the information one wants shall be got without 
trouble, and shall be as complete as possible. 

In their conversation about Gravelotte, these 



56 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



officers scouted the supposition of the French 
that Bazaine had no intention of seriously de- 
fending Metz to the end, and that his surrender 
was treason to the state ; such a supposition 
being simply absurd in the light of the tremen- 
dous energy with which Gravelotte was con- 
tested, at such cost to his troops. They believed 
that that battle having been lost, — -although he 
might have maintained himself in Metz until it 
was destroyed by bombardment, and its provis- 
ions consumed, — by surrendering when he did 
he had not only saved the city, but, what was 
much more important, had avoided the fearful 
mortality in hospitals that a long siege would 
have been sure to cause. 

I called on General Wright, and was startled 
to hear perfect insular English spoken by an 
officer in the Prussian uniform, — Germany, it 
seems, does not confine herself to her native 
resources, but takes advantage of merit wherever 
she finds it. 

My visit had been fortunately timed, for on the 
next day there was to be a field manoeuvre of four 
regiments of cavalry. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



57 



We drove out, with an English major-general 
of cavalry and his wife, to the plain of St. Privat- 
les-Metz about four miles out of town, — broad, 
slightly undulating fields, traversed by two or 
three high-roads. The open country is bounded 
on the west by a wood, and on the south and 
southeast by a depression, beyond which the hills 
rise quite rapidly. The troops, as we arrived, 
were making an advance against an imaginary 
enemy (indicated by guidons). One battalion had 
dismounted half of its men, who were sent for- 
ward to the bottom of the valley at the left, as 
skirmishers. One regiment was very far forward, 
and the other troops, and the battery, were 
advancing. After two charges they retired, — 
the skirmishers holding their line, I thought, 
later than they would have done against a real 
enemy. However, they got to their horses with 
remarkable quickness, and made their rapid re- 
treat, in columns of half company front, most 
admirably. They passed me at a strong hand- 
gallop, crossing the road diagonally, and leaping 
its two boundary ditches without breaking their 
alignment. They were in such close order that it 



58 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



seemed as though the first horses only could 
have seen the ditches, and that the others must 
have followed their leaps as sheep do. It was 
surprising to see how little these two leaps, in 
quick succession, disturbed the formation. One 
man and horse fell, near the head of the column, 
and disappeared from sight. All behind went 
straight on without heeding them, and there 
was no widening of the distance to indicate that 
they were being avoided. After the column had 
passed, the fallen man scrambled out of the ditch, 
got his horse up, mounted, and regained his 
place. There was then an advance in another 
direction, toward the right, and, after an hour of 
various manoeuvres, the whole body returned to a 
point nearly a mile from our position, and thence 
made an advance in line, ending with a charge 
of the whole four regiments, and a rally far to 
the south. 

We had crossed the field to the edge of the 
wood, and were, with other spectators, awaiting 
whatever might turn up. Presently there came 
at full gallop scattering squads of buglers on 
white horses, who disappeared around the corner 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



59 



of the wood, whence they presently returned with 
their instruments, — four full bands together, — 
ready for the review. 

We took our position near the commanding 
general, at the east side of the field, and saw his 
aid despatched with an order for the column to 
pass at the gallop. The point from which it 
started was fully a quarter of a mile to the left, 
and it struck the gallop at once, — not a canter, 
but a sharp gallop. The command was formed 
in column of squadrons. As the head of the first 
regiment approached, its band struck up a flour- 
ish, wheeled to the left and formed in line, facing 
the general, striking its regular air almost before 
halting. After the regiment had passed, the 
band fell in at the rear, still playing without 
interruption. 

The colonels, having saluted in passing, swung 
furiously around to their position at the general's 
right, and as their left squadrons passed, they 
flew, at racing speed, to the heads of their regi- 
ments. The alignment, as the troops passed, — 
eyes right, — was simply marvellous. It would be 
a wonderfully well-trained infantry regiment that 



6o 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



could keep anything like such alignment at more 
than a moderate quickstep. 

After the review, as we turned toward town, 
my companion and I compared notes. He had 
commanded. cavalry in the Crimea, and I was not 
surprised to hear him confess that in celerity 
and exactness of movement these German regi- 
ments were the best he had seen. For me, it 
seemed ludicrous, with the impression that I had 
just received fresh in my mind, to recur to what 
we used to call cavalry during our war, — though 
I had, naturally, a slight mental reservation in 
favor of my own " Vierte Missouri." Here, the 
men were generally light, and the horses well 
bred. They were very nearly perfect cavalry. 
As a writer is nothing if not critical, I would add 
that the carbines seemed to me to be clumsily 
carried, — thumping across the thigh at every 
step. 

Metz is now a thoroughly military town, hav- 
ing always a large garrison, which, at the time of 
our visit, had been considerably increased. We 
were regularly awakened at three or four o'clock 
in the morning by martial music and the tramp 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



61 



of infantry, or the rumbling of artillery, or the 
clatter of cavalry over the pavements. It seemed 
like New York during our war. The troops 
were going out for their morning exercises, and 
toward noon they returned, generally passing our 
hotel. They were always imposing. I do not 
know how severe their work may be at other sea- 
sons, but, during the September manoeuvres, both 
horses and men seemed to be forced to their ut- 
most endurance, — the horses to a degree that 
could not be long continued, without many of 
them being thrown out of service. 

An event of our visit was the buying of a boat, 
the " Nancy," for our further journey. Under 
the Pont des Morts is a fleet of thirty or forty 
flat-bottomed skiffs with pointed bows and broad 
sterns, nicely painted and equipped with rudders, 
tiller-ropes, and odd-shaped oars, — these sawed 
from flat boards and swung on iron swivels. In 
spite of some old-time experience in the skilful 
buying and selling of horses, I was completely 
outdone by the accomplished jockey in boats 
with whom I now had to deal. I beat him down 
tremendously from his asking price, and thought 



62 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



I had a great bargain — at 225 francs — in a sec- 
ond-hand boat that I could, as I afterward learned, 
have had made new for half the money. It was 
this or nothing, for the wretched fleet-master had 
the monopoly of the trade. However, as I did 
not discover the swindle until we reached the 
Rhine, our whole trip was made happy by the 
consciousness of a real bargain.* For an in- 
significant twelve francs, we had added a snug 
wagon-top canopy over the stern-sheets. 

The question of the hardship inflicted upon 
the Messins by the bringing of their city under 
the German yoke, obtrudes itself at every step ; 
but, looking at the matter calmly, with a view to 
the former history of the town, there seems some- 
thing to be said on the other side. 

Metz was in its glory in the middle of the 
fourteenth century, when Charles IV. held there 
a Diet, at which the Archbishops of Trier, Co- 
logne, and Maintz, and the four lay Electors were 

* I dislike to advertise my own wares ; but I am still open to 
an offer of ten dollars for a capital row-boat that is chained to 
the pier at Koblenz, — first pier below the Bridge of Boats. 
N. B. — The purchaser to pay costs. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



63 



present. This Diet made additions to the Gol- 
den Bull which was then published, and remained 
always the law of the German Empire. At this 
time, the city was gorgeous with princes, dukes, 
electors, and knights, and the most imposing 
national ceremonies were held in this cathedral. 

It was during the next century much shaken 
with petty wars, and frequent attempts were 
made to capture it. Among others, one by the 
Duke of Lorraine and his brother-in-law, Charles 
VII., of France. 

Louis II., of France, tried to gain possession 
of it by strategic devices. In 1473, Metz being 
then a free city, Frederick III. paid it a visit and 
promised to protect its liberties. Charles the 
Bold failed in an attempt to capture it. 

Later, the Duke of Lorraine attempted by at- 
tack, by strategem, and by treachery, to gain 
possession of the town, and finally, in 1552, 
Henry II., by a clear case of " obtaining prop- 
erty under false pretences," gained the mastery of 
the city. 

These feeble title-deeds of the French, who 
were able to hold the town against a siege of 



64 



THE MOSEL IN A ROW-BOAT. 



Charles V., held good until the middle of the 
seventeenth century, when Metz capitulated to 
Gustavus Adolphus. Finally, in the articles of 
barter known as the Peace of Westphalia, it 
was definitely assigned to France. The French 
claim that their long peaceful possession made 
Metz absolutely French territory. The Germans, 
on the other hand, confidently believe that, by 
their recent action, they have simply retaken 
their own. 




TOWING UP STREAM. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE UPPER MOSEL, 

HE charming city of Metz was, after all, 
only a halting-place in the preliminary 
steps of our journey, which had to do 
rather with the old German stretch of the river 
between Trier and Koblenz. So, at two o'clock 
on the day of the cavalry manoeuvre, we embarked 
with our baggage on board the " Nancy," with 
one-thumbed Eugene du Belloy, as oarsman,— 
under contract to row us to Thionville for five 
francs. We soon entered the last lock of the 
canalization The gate-tender took our card in 
compliance with the police regulations, and our 
" trinkgeld " — we are in Germany now — out of 
regard for a cherished usage. He slowly lowered 
us to the level of the river, swung back the great 
valves, and started us on our happy way, — which 




66 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



led past the washerwomen of the suburbs, — wo- 
men standing in their tubs and washing in the 
river. 

The cockswain manned the tiller-ropes, and 




Eugene fell into the steady rapid strokes of his 
rowing. While he remained with us, he divided 
with the outlying scenery a large share of our in- 
terest. He had been a French soldier, and had 
served in the army about Metz, where, as he 
gravely told us with the elegant diction to which 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



67 



even the lowest class of Frenchmen seem to be 
given, he had lost " one of his members," looking 
sadly at a boxwood thumb strapped to his left 
hand. During the time that he stayed with us 
we remarked, as we were always led to do in con- 
versing with Frenchmen of whatever class, the 
entire absence from his speech of vulgarity or 
any approach to slang, or even of especial force 
of expression. Once, when I was standing up in 
the bow of the boat, he asked that I would give 
myself the pain to seat myself, so that my person 
should oppose less resistance to the wind ; and 
he generally made it evident that the French is 
entirely deficient in those terse forms of expres- 
sion which among ourselves, and with the Ger- 
mans, serve for the ordinary interchange of 
thought. 

The valley below Metz is broad and carefully 
cultivated. The hills rarely reach the river on 
either side, but, near or far, they are always beau- 
tiful. The railroad is so far removed from the left 
bank that it did not disturb our soft September 
afternoon ; and, as the sun set, and we floated on 
past the wooded shores, under the light of a new 



68 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



moon, we revelled in the very perfection of Ar- 
cadian travel. 

To detail the points of interest that we passed 
would be uninteresting ; the pleasure of the pass- 
ing glance of even these beautiful shores can be 
received only through experience, not from de- 
scription. At Malroy we landed and bought wine ; 
then came the charming chateau and wood of 
Blettange, and all through the waning twilight 
and under the crescent moon all the sights and 
sounds of a pastoral valley greeted us, and made 
us happy as we swept smoothly on with the cur- 
rent. 

We landed, after dusk, at the boatman's wharf 
at Thionville, and, leaving our heavier possessions 
in his custody, went to the little Hotel Saint 
Hubert, near the old bridge, a second-class hotel, 
not recommended to " tourists/' but snug, French, 
and comfortable, and for travellers by water ex- 
tremely convenient. 

Immediately after our arrival we were met by 
a mutiny on the part of the crew, who, having got 
us away from Metz, with its idle men, and formed 
a combination with the oarsmen of Thionville, 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



6 9 



raised his tariff enormously, so that we were 
obliged to concede the unconscionable sum of 
four dollars and a return ticket by rail for the 
long two days' pull to Trier (fifty miles). 

After dinner I strolled out to see the town, 
and, knowing that to reach the Hotel de Luxem- 
burg I must traverse the whole city, I accosted a 
wayfarer in the dark and asked directions. He 
instantly proposed to accompany me. To this I 
demurred, refusing to give him such trouble. He 
replied that it was his duty and his pleasure to 
take trouble for me, as he was my " maitre- 
d'hotel." I hastened to assure him that I only 
wished to look about the town, and he gladly 
offered himself as a guide. 

He pointed out the few remaining marks of the 
heavy bombardment, and spoke with pride of 
blocks of new buildings replacing those that had 
been battered down. These were fine structures, 
and I asked if they had been rebuilt by the in- 
surance companies. 

" Not at all ; by the Prussian government." 

" Then the town has not suffered pecuniarily 
from the effects of the war ? " 



70 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



" Au contraire ; ils ont enrichi la ville ; they 
have spent money with the greatest liberality for 
our benefit.'' 

When we had seen the little that Thionville 
has to offer in the dark, he took me to his Cercle 
(club), a comfortable room in the rear of a public 
restaurant, and served by the restaurant waiters. 
Here several intelligent Frenchmen sat, smoking 
pipes, sipping beer, and chatting. One was a 
lawyer and another an ex-officer of Bazaine's 
army in Mexico, w T ho was glad to talk of Maxi- 
milian, for whom he had a sort of fondness. He 
said that he was " bon gargon," but a bad soldier ; 
" a good enough fellow, but one of those stupids 
who think they have been born to govern their 
betters ; an aristocrat, in fine." This was, in 
short, a French radical of the more intelligent 
sort ; not quite a communist, but emphatically a 
radical. 

Sitting pleasantly for an hour, I was able to 
lead the conversation in the direction of the Ger- 
mans and their conduct as rulers. All were loud 
in expressing the universal hatred, — but this 
done, they were very ready to evince a profound 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



71 



respect for and a warm confidence in their con- 
querors, and they obviously looked for such an 
increase of public prosperity and of individual 
good fortune as they had never experienced under 
French rule. It seemed to me that the hatred 
was skin-deep, and the respect and expectation 
of benefit very deeply planted. They united in 
speaking of the German government as " tres 
large." 

" Comme nationality nous les hai'ssons ; mais, 
voyez-vous, it is like a cat and a dog shut up in 
the same stable ; they begin by snarling and 
spitting, but they end by lying down together 
beside the same bone." 

By daylight, Thionville is a dull town, half old 
and half restored, and shut in behind a high wall 
that hides it from the plain. It is entirely unin- 
teresting. 

On Sunday, the 5th of September, we left at a 
quarter before eleven for the long pull to Remich. 
The river remained of the same general character 
that it showed below Metz, and was beyond all 
description charming. About three o'clock we 
swept around the long curve that brought Sierck 



72 



TWO 1IUXDRED MILES 



in view, and showed us on the left the pretty hill- 
side village of Basse Kontz. There is here a 
strong current, and Eugene stopped rowing, to 
mix his drop of rum with the water of the river. 
We floated on for some distance in perfect quiet. 
On a hill, high above the Mosel, stood the fine 
village church of Kontz. As we first saw it a 
procession of white-hooded nuns, followed by 
school-children in white, was marching in at the 
church door, and soon there came plainly to our 
ears a chanted anthem, — resting on the full tones 
of an organ, and lasting till we had passed beyond 
the range of the open door. This was the last 
touch needed to make our peaceful Sunday row 
forever memorable. 

Sierck gave us our first definite impression of a 
rural mediaeval town kept up by modern traffic, but 
still resting between the protecting arms of an 
ancient fortification, whose walls — in ruins now 
and beautifully overgrown with ivy — reach nearly 
to the river at each side. We dined very well 
at the Hotel de Metz, renewing our regrets 
that such dining is not possible in travel at 
home. 



IN A M OS EL ROW-BOAT. 



73 



At Kontz and Sierck there is still observed a 
curious usage that dates back to immemorial an- 
tiquity. On the eve of St. John's day, June 23, 
the villagers roll a burning wheel from the heights 
of the Stromberg, that rises behind the village, 
down the steep hillside to the Mosel. The be- 
ginning of the festivities is announced by the 
firing of guns from the Mairie of Sierck at ten 
o'clock. Then go numberless troops up the 
Stromberg, on the top of which a bonfire is 
lighted. A straw-bound wheel in full blaze is 
rolled down, guided at first by the mountain boys 
with sticks. The others make torches of the re- 
maining straw, which they swing with joyous 
cries. The women and girls stand by the moun- 
tain-brook well ; the men and boys are keeping 
the fire on the height or guiding the rolling of the 
wheel. If this runs beyond the well, Kontz gets 
from Sierck a cask of white wine ; if it stops 
short of that point, Sierck gets from Kontz a 
basket of cherries ; if it reaches the Mosel, a 
good vintage is predicted for the coming harvest. 
The excitement is great and boisterous, and the 
people come from miles around. Every baiter of 



74 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Kontz is bound at the preceding harvest to mow 
away selected straw for the binding of this wheel. 
Should he neglect this, every evil that befalls him 
during the following year is ascribed to his neg- 
lect. It is even believed that, were the usage 
neglected for a single year, a plague would fall 
upon the cattle of the whole village. 

This rite is thought to have descended from 
the ancient fire-worship of the heathen days. 
The wheel, with its arms, represents the burn- 
ing sun, the giver of all good. At many places 
along the lower river the tradition is kept up in 
one form or other. It has been suggested that 
the well-known pretzel, with which the Teuton 
primes himself for further beer, was formerly 
made in the shape of a wheel, and was used in 
commemoration of sun-worship ; others believe 
that the pretzel has always been made in its 
present form of the true-lover's knot. 

It was along the stretch of the river lying be- 
low us that Ausonius found much of the material 
for his poem " Mosella." * 

* See " The River Mosel and its Old Roman Poet " published 
herewith. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



75 



Our further trip to Remich was uneventful, 
but everywhere pleasant. We arrived at night- 
fall, landing above the fine old bridge, and walk- 
ing over rough cobble-stones, left by the higher 
floods, to the back entrance of the Hotel Schorn, 
a very old, small, and queer inn, but clean and 
excellent, with a pleasant half-French and half- 
German handmaiden. The town lies in Luxem- 
burg, which borders the Mosel on the left as 
far as Wasserbillig. There are many pictu- 
resque old houses, and some fine ones, built along 
very narrow and bad-smelling streets. In the 
garden of the high-lying Casino I took my coffee, 
and looked out over the beautiful opposite plain, 
all innocent of the rage I was later to feel at 
Baedekers unpardonable stupidity. I had long 
ago been led to pin such faith to his guide- 
books as to expect nothing of interest along my 
road which these did not indicate. That faith 
vanished into thin air when we found that, 
within a short walk, and in full view of where 
I had sat, lay the village of Nennig, whose 
marvellous Roman mosaic — one of the largest 
and best preserved thus far discovered — is an 



7 6 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



M 111 



object of pilgrimage for the antiquarians of 
the civilized world. 

Early the next morning we 
set out for Trier in company 
with a party of fishermen in odd 
boats, some of them like our 
Southern "dugouts," — watch- 
ing their curious net-throwing 
as they rowed in company down 
the stream. On the right we 
passed a large porcelain-fac- 
tory, apparently built on a 
bank of its own debris, with 
its owners fine chateau over- 
looking it. Farther on, at the 
left, rose the beautiful ruined 
tower of Stadtbredimus, at- 
tached to a handsome modern 
mansion, with a high terraced 
garden and summer-house, — 
a tumble-down village nestling 
under its ancient walls. 
At noon we landed at the wharf of the unin- 
teresting old town of Krevenmacheren. At its 




IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



77 



untidy and noisy hotel we sat down to an un- 
savory lunch, whose too savory (overdue) rab- 
bit will long 
be remem- 
bered. 

Of the 
next hours 
journey not 
much is to 
be said, save 
that it was 
through the 
Mosel Val- 
ley, which is 
everywhere 
lovely. At 
Wasserbil- 
lig (at the 
mouth of the 
Sure, which 
separa t es 
Luxemburg 

from Germany) we leave the broader, lower- 
hilled, and more pastoral valley of the upper 




THE ROMAN MONUMENT AT I GEL. 



78 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Mosel, and pass between high adjacent bluffs 
that serve as a portal to the old mediaeval Ger- 
man stretch of the river. Five villages are in 
sight, the last on the left being Igel, where we 
landed among a party of busy riverside washer- 
women, and trudged up through the queer old 
streets to the celebrated Igel monument, — also 
called the Heidensthurm, or Heathen's tower. 
This remarkable monument, which is about sev- 
enty-five feet high, is built of the red iron-stone 
of the neighborhood. The width of its face is 
sixteen feet, and its thickness is thirteen feet. 
It has been the subject of much archaeological 
research, and opinions are not entirely in accord 
as to its origin. The prevailing belief is that it 
was erected in the time of Antoninus, in the latter 
half of the second century, as a private monu- 
ment of the family of Secundini, — wealthy Ro- 
man merchants and purveyors of the period. Its 
devices, including groups of figures nine feet 
high, and of vehicles and beasts of burden, har- 
vest scenes, etc., indicate the family occupation. 
Its inscription is no less curious than its figures, 
but is even more mutilated. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



79 



Its most commonly accepted interpretation is 
to the effect that " Secundinus Aventinus and 
Secundums Securus, purveyors of this route, 
erected this monument during their lifetime to 
Secundinus Securus, who has founded this place 
named JEgla, with Secundinus Aventinus, to the 
son of Secundinus Securus, and to Publica Pa- 
cata, wife of Secundinus Aventinus ; and to L. 
Saccius Modestus, and to Modestus Mocabo, his 
son, the judge, their ancestors, and to themselves 
after their death." 

The top is surmounted by a large ball, on 
which is perched what is left of a Roman eagle. 
The monument is extremely majestic and im- 
pressive, without reference to its antiquarian in- 
terest, — more so than any other of the Roman 
remains of the Mosel, except the Porta Nigra in 
Trier. 

A little below Igel we passed the mouth of 
the Saar, in full view of the old town of Conz, 
celebrated for a battle between the French and 
Germans in 1675, where Marshal Crequi lost 
three thousand killed and one thousand prison- 
ers. On the parsonage grounds of this old vil- 



8o 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



lage once stood an imperial Roman palace, of 
which remains are still found. The bridge cross- 
ing the Saar is said to have stood in the time 
of Ausonius. 

For a distance now the valley widens very 
materially, and the hills increase in height, en- 
closing the broadest and most fertile plain of 
the whole lower Mosel, — a plain where was 
sheltered eighteen hundred years ago the most 
important Cisalpine civilization of the ancient 
Romans. 

It was late in the afternoon as we passed the 
fine old ruin of Chartreuse, and a little below, 
on the opposite bank, saw what seemed to be 
the very perfection of a quiet and placid river- 
side country-seat, — our field-glass showing the 
inscription u Monaise " in its pediment. Consid- 
ering it with the pleasant emotions that such a 
trip on such a day cannot fail to engender, it 
seemed that if one could forget old friends and 
old associations, and regulate one's future living 
solely by one's present impulses, Monaise, as it 
lay basking in the pleasant afternoon light, of- 
fered all that indolent and luxury-seeking persons 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



81 



could ask. So complete was it, and so charming, 
in every aspect, that it was with real regret that 
we turned our backs upon it. 

Our day's journey, and our day, were fast 
drawing to a close together. The last rays of 
the setting sun were gilding the huge tower of 
the Church of St. Matthias, whose ponderous 
and time-blackened ornamentation was set out 
in full relief, like an eternal monument over the 
veritable resting-place of St. Matthew, who here 
lies buried. 

The last glimmer of the fading day lightened 
up the spires and towers, and the steep fish- 
scale roofs of the grand old city of Augusta 
Trevirorum, under the shadow of whose Roman- 
built bridge we disembarked, paying first our 
tribute of thanks for safe conduct to the cosily- 
niched statue of St. Nicholas, the patron saint 
of the Mosel boatman. 



CHAPTER V. 



IMPERIAL TRIER. 
" Ante Romam Treviris stetit annis mille trecentis." 

NTIQUITY is entirely relative. We ex- 
amine with respect the few old Dutch 
houses that still adorn the towns along 
the Hudson, and look almost with awe upon 
the old stone mill at Newport, which has not 
been proved not to have been built by Snorri, 
who discovered " Vinland " four hundred years 
before Columbus ; but the yawning muzzles of 
Lord Scale's guns at Mont St. Michel (guns 
still holding their four-hundred-year-old charges) 
seem to swallow at one gulp all that with us 
seems ancient. As we wander through France 
we become quite accustomed to the period of 
Charlemagne, and take the later centuries into 
our familiar confidence. In England " Caesars 
Tower" at each castle, and Roman roads through- 




IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



83 



out the land, give a certain reality to the mys- 
tical letters " B. C," and unduly modernize all 
that belongs to the Christian era. To have 
Caesar himself seem almost an actual presence, 
and to walk in the very footprints of the Roman 
emperors ; to sympathize with them in the emo- 
tion that comes of founding a superb city on 
the ruins of a well-established Celtic civilization, 
one needs to travel only so far on the road that 
leads to Rome as to the great Western Roman 
Capital. 

It is not necessary to accept the suggestion 
that Trebeta, the step-son of Semiramis, led his 
vassals from Babylon to found the barbaric race 
of the Trevirii, a race which held and cultivated 
the vast tract on the left of the Rhine from 
Bingen to the Ahr. Authentic evidence halts 
at the point where this people were an estab- 
lished race, with no mean artistic development. 
There is nothing left to prove the accepted tra- 
dition that their chief city, in which we stand, 
existed thirteen hundred years before the found- 
ing of Rome. Yet we have on every hand, if 
we will but seek it, — and unquestionable records 



8 4 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



attest its truth, — ample evidence that here in 
Trier existed for centuries the oldest and most 
complete civilization of all Northern Europe. 

The long and broad Mosel valley, where the 
city now slumbers so idly, was in the early cen- 
turies the field of bitter feuds and savage warfare. 
All down the intervening ages its soil has drunk 
deeply of human blood. 

The archaeological collection in the museum 
behind our comfortable hotel is rich in Celtic 
and old German utensils and ornaments, which, 
discovered by the Romans when they dug for 
the foundations of their buildings, enriched their 
museums of antiquities, and now — side by side 
with their own long-buried treasures — carry us 
back to the very twilight that preceded the dawn 
of the Roman day. 

One's first halt at Trier is never to be forgot- 
ten, especially if, as in our own case, it had been 
regarded only as a point on the map at which we 
were to change from the railway to the steamer. 
The Trierscher Hof stands at the angle where 
several narrow streets come together, and our 
rooms looked out upon steep slate roofs, and 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



85 



small-paned windows, such as one sees everywhere 
in Continental travel. If the rain has wetted 
the country roads, one is awakened at dawn by 
the clattering of sabots on the stones, and the 
streets are filled in the early morning with peas- 
ant-men driving wagons, drawn by cows yoked 
from the horns ; with broad-backed peasant- 
women carrying knapsack-like baskets heavily 
laden with potatoes, or with grain ; and one is 
greeted by a variety of street sights and sounds 
entirely unfamiliar to the American ear. 

An early stroll among these people, and 
through these narrow streets, gives a sensation 
of entire novelty no less than of a certain awk- 
ward conspicuousness in one's own manner of 
dress. The American, like the Englishman, is 
still a well-marked foreigner in all German 
towns, and if he is accompanied by ladies, the 
striking characteristics of Franco-American mil- 
linery will by no means detract from the curious 
interest that his group excites in the minds of 
the people, — not, however, let me hasten to say, 
the impudent and derisive interest with which 
our own populace makes the costumed stranger 



86 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



miserable, and which robbed our Centennial of 
one of its great attractions. 

Strolling, curious, down " Neu " street — prob- 
ably new two thousand years ago — entering the 
market-place into which it debouches, and thread- 




THE PORTA NIGRA AT TRIER. 



ing a difficult passage through the crowds of 
women, whose stands and baskets are loaded 
with all manner of country produce, one feels 
the unfamiliar presence of the oldest of all old 
German architecture. Houses of most pictu- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



87 



resque and curious form and arrangement greet 
us on every side. Far in front — cut sharp 
against the sky — stands an incomprehensible 
pile of unfinished masonry. This is the north 
gate of the city, — called the Porta Nigra, the 
Porta Romana, the Porta Martis, Simeons Thor, 
and the Devil's Church, — and it closes the end 
of the finest street of the town. When we first 
saw it we had not read even a guide-book de- 
scription of the city, and to come suddenly upon 
such a majestic and well-preserved ruin produced 
the sensation that one feels when a turn in a road 
brings him face to face with a noble view. Its 
original purpose is not known, — it must have 
been more than a' gateway, and it could hardly 
have been a fortress. It was, perhaps, rather a 
monumental "Gate of Justice." 

The Porta Nigra is supposed to have been built 
in the first century. Its towers are ninety-four 
feet high. It is built of huge blocks of dark red 
iron-stone, the usual size of these being from four 
to five feet long, from two to three feet wide, and 
about two feet thick. These stones are laid with- 
out mortar, and are secured in place by iron 



88 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



clamps. The columns and capitals are of rough 
hammer-hewn stone, and were to have been 
carved in place. The carving did not progress 
very far, and it is not easy to reconcile the un- 



Tradition, which attaches such importance to 
the assistance of the Devil in all of the larger 
architecture of the world, holds him responsible 
for the stopping of the work. He made a con- 
tract with the authorities, — the consideration 
being the soul of the first man who should pass 
through the gateway, — that he would furnish for 
it, before twelve o'clock on Christmas night, the 
superb doors of the Capitol, which was under the 
protection of the Virgin. She arrested his flight 
in mid-air, appearing to him in the guise of a 
voluptuous woman, and so beguiled his moments 
that he delayed a shade too long. The clock 
struck twelve before he arrived at his destination. 
In anger he threw the heavy gates through the 




PLAN OF PORTA NIGRA AT TRIER. 



finished condition of the 
structure with the fact 
that it was begun so 
early in the Roman 
period. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



8 9 



roof of the building, and its completion was 
abandoned. The truth of this tradition is at- 
tested by the fact that never within the memory 
of man has there been a roof over the Porta 
Nigra. 

A shrewd and unwashed pilgrim from Syra- 
cuse, named Simeon, a thousand years or more 
ago, procured for himself a holy reputation by 
leading an ill-fed, unclean, and useless life on the 
summit of this structure. As a matter of course, 
he was in due time canonized, and an apse of 
mediaeval architecture was built at one end of 
the Porta Nigra, which was consecrated as " St. 
Simeon's " church. This apse still stands, and 
is an uninteresting disfigurement ; but, although 
built of solid masonry, it lacks so much of the 
ponderous character of the Roman work as really 
not to detract seriously from its grander effect. 

There still stands, in another part of the city, a 
second example of the more solid Roman work in 
the former " Basilica," a building which probably 
never had the least beauty, and which has had its 
original character quite modernized out of it. In 
its dimensions alone exists its only remaining 



9 o 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



interest, — its walls being ten feet thick and one 
hundred feet high. 

The Mosel (at this point five hundred feet 
wide) is spanned by an ancient bridge rebuilt 
upon the piers of the Roman structure. In me- 




PLAN OF THE BASILICA AT TRIER. 



diaeval times the area of the walled city was re- 
stricted to the right bank of the river, and the 
bridge now marks its southwestern corner, but 
it is said to have been the centre of the Roman 
capital 

In strolling about, one sees built into street 
corners and house fronts and city wall fragments 
of carved stone of the imperial time. The exca- 
vation for building in the city and its suburbs, as 
well as the dredging of the river, discovers almost 
daily some trophy of the Roman period. In the 
building of a country-seat beyond the Porta Nigra, 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



91 



at the time of our visit, there had been discovered 
a perfect museum of Etruscan pottery, amphorae, 
domestic utensils, jewelry, and coins that had lain 
buried fifteen hundred years. A friend's gardener 
raked up last summer, while tending the plants 
in her back courtyard, a silver coin of Titus. 

At Junk's restaurant an attempt to extend the 
cellar was given up because of the discovery 
(about five feet below the level of the ground) of 
a large and very perfect Roman mosaic pavement, 
— as well preserved as that at Nennig, and as 
complete as any of its size in Rome. It is the 
belief that since the Roman occupation there has 
accumulated throughout the whole city a soil four 
or five feet in depth, which covers an uninter- 
rupted stratum of interesting antiquities, — a be- 
lief that is fully sustained by all investigations 
thus far made. 

At the southeastern corner of the city there is 
a pile of imposing Roman ruins which is variously 
believed to have been a palace of the emperors, a 
bath, and a pantomime theatre. It is built largely 
of the thin square bricks so much used by the 
Romans, and parts still stand nearly to their full 



9 2 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



original height. Excavations have developed the 
slave-cells, the heating-chambers, and the store- 
rooms of the ancient occupants, and the bathing 
appliances which formed so conspicuous a part of 
the finer Roman buildings. 

Just without the walls, at this point, are the 
well-defined remains of the amphitheatre. The 
arena at Rome is two hundred and eighty-five 
feet by one hundred and ninety feet ; this, two 
hundred and twenty feet by one hundred and 
fifty-five feet. The seats — for twenty-eight thou- 
sand spectators — were hewn out of the rising 
rock of the Marsberg. The galleries for the en- 
trance of the gladiators and wild beasts, the main 
entrance to the arena, and the pen for the doomed 
captives, are still distinguishable. The inner wall, 
guarding the seats from the arena, is seven feet 
high, and of limestone laid in mortar ; the outer 
walls were heavy iron-clamped blocks of red iron- 
stone, — as in the Porta Nigra. This amphi- 
theatre was the scene of many of the grossest 
cruelties of Constantine. An inscription in honor 
of Trajan carries its authentic date back to the 
close of the first century. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



95 



The Emperor Constantine lived long in Trier, 
added much to its renown, and made it a worthy 
Imperial residence. In the year 306, in this 
arena he entertained his barbaric people by the 
sacrifice of thousands of captured Franks with 
their princes Ascarich and Ragais. 

During all these early centuries of our era 
Trier was the most important city north of the 
Alps, and ranked as one of five great capitals 
of the universe. It was a seat of learning and 
of the arts ; it was the capital of Spain, Gaul, 
Belgium, and Britain ; its professors were dis- 
tinguished as of the first rank, and were the 
most highly paid of all in the provincial Empire. 

At the beginning of the fifth century the city 
was devastated by the Huns and Vandals ; the 
Roman capital was transferred to Aries ; and 
there soon arose upon the ruins of Imperial 
Trier the capital of the Austrasian kings, — from 
Theodobert to Dagobert. Charlemagne treas- 
ured its institutions, and enriched its churches 
and convents with costly gifts. 

At the treaty of Verdun the district passed 
to the possession of Lorraine. Under the Em- 



9 6 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



peror Henry I. it became incorporated with Ger- 
many. Now began its second period of impor- 
tance as the seat of the Archbishops, after which 
the consequence of the city steadily waned. In 
1794 it was captured by the French Republic, 
and in 181 5 it became a part of the Rhenish 
Province of Prussia. Throughout its whole ca- 
reer, siege and pestilence have decimated its 
population, annihilated its achievements, and 
subjected its people to great suffering 

Now, after all these eventful centuries, Trier, 
covered with the scars and the torn glories of 
her great past, basks in a monumental repose 
within her mediaeval walls, — a quiet, modest, 
humdrum little city, from which all enterprise 
and all modern activity have shrunk away, as 
they have from the quieter villages along the 
banks of the ancient and neglected Mosel. 

Nevertheless, her hushed and modest appeal 
to our interest is of a sort which, if heeded at all, 
demands careful and earnest attention. It is easy 
to while away an autumn day in skimming over 
her treasures, — drinking in the beauty and in- 
terest which, as the oldest city of Germany, she 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



97 



naturally offers in her curious architecture, — 
and to pass on, giving little further heed to her 
claim upon our attention. But the moment one 
penetrates beneath the surface there appears 
much that invites to a more careful consideration 
and a deeper study. Indeed, an idler may do 
much worse than to take Trier for his hobby. 

The history of this city is interwoven with the 
history of the Church from the very beginning 
of the Christian era. The conversion of the sav- 
age tribes of the neighborhood was first intrusted 
to St. Eucharius, the disciple of St. Peter, and 
there were several very early ecclesiastical foun- 
dations. Indeed, Trier has been noted in every 
age for a conspicuous connection with the Chris- 
tian movement. Here, too, have been exercised 
some of the most notable assaults upon the 
faithful. In the grass-plat near the old Church 
of St. Paulin, outside of the Porta Nigra, stands 
an ancient cross marking the spot of a Christian 
martyrdom so enormous in its proportions that 
tradition reports the blood of the victims to have 
stained the waters of the Mosel until they ran 
red as far as Neumagen. 



9 8 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



The remains of St. Matthew lie buried in the 
Church of St. Matthias (formerly named after 
St. Eucharius, who began preaching the gospel 
here in the year 54). These remains were brought 

here in the eleventh cen- 




PL AN OF ORIGINAL CATHEDRAL, AND BAPTISTERY AT TRIER, AS RESTORED 
BY FERGUSSON. 



(in 128). Besides these, this church boasts a 
number of the most precious relics, including (as 
is usual) a fragment of the true cross, — brought 
from Constantinople at its fall in 1204. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



99 



St. Maximin, near St. Paulin, was in the Mid- 
dle Ages one of the most important convents of 
Europe, and a distinguished seat of learning, its 
library boasting some of the choicest treasures 
of church bibliography. 

Although these churches and convents in the 
environs are so exceedingly rich with interest, 
it is in the very heart of the city itself that 
we are to seek the oldest and most interest- 
ing of the Christian churches of all Northern 
Europe. At the end of the Domstrasse, across 
a little square, stands a curious, and at first 
not especially attractive, pile of buildings, con- 
stituting the Dom, or Cathedral, and the ad- 
jacent Liebfrauenkirche, — buildings which are 
thought by students of church architecture to 
be unparalleled in their historic value. The rec- 
tangular structure at the left, the basis of the 
present Dom, has never been traced with cer- 
tainty to its ultimate origin, but it is supposed 
by some to have been in the earliest Roman 
period a square temple with an atrium. Others 
give it a still older existence as a market-house, 
or public granary. In the "Gesta Trevirorum" 



IOO 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



it is described as a palace in which was born St. 
Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine. 

Whatever its early origin, it is, historically and 
monumentally, the most noteworthy of all Ger- 
man churches, as its architecture not only reaches 
back to the very earliest Christian time, but bears 
the mark of alterations and improvements of 
every intervening period and style, down to the 
eighteenth century. 

The Liebfrauenkirche at its side — the circu- 
lar form at the right of the first plan — was for- 
merly the baptistery of the church. 

The present arrangement of the two build- 
ings is shown in the larger cut. The Dom has 
assumed the generous length of three hundred 
and fourteen feet. It shows marked indications 
of early Roman work in the material of its 
pilasters. There is no especial disfigurement — 
though an absence of marked beauty — in its 
later modifications. Its four main columns were 
originally of huge stone-work. One of these 
fell at the restoration, and its fragments now lie 
at the outer door ; their size almost indicates 
Druidic handiwork. 




PLAN OF THE PRESENT CATHEDRAL OF TRIER, WITH THE LIEBFRAUENKIRCHE 
AND CLOISTER. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



103 



The interior decorations are more rich than 
artistic, and more curious even than rich, — 




ENCLOSURE TO CHOIR, CATHEDRAL, TRIER. 



curious, as including a monumental history of the 
Archbishops and Electors for several centuries. 
The Liebfrauenkirche is the oldest Gothic 



104 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



church in Germany. It is a Greek cross with 
the angles carried out to full fluted recesses, and 
with the tallest and most graceful clustered col- 
umns supporting a skylike vaulted roof of perfect 
proportions. It would, but for its crude freshness 
of paint, impress even the ordinary tourist as 
being, what architectural students say that it 
really is, the most perfect specimen of German 
Gothic church architecture. 

In connection with these monumental churches 
— which now really form one building — are 
beautiful cloisters, a Campo Santo, into which 
the tombs of the Archbishops have overflowed 
from the death-crowded Dom. These cloisters 
lack the graceful and vine-grown lightness of 
many which belong to the more ornate Gothic 
period, but they have in no mean degree that 
peculiar charm which attaches to cloisters more 
completely than to anything else with which our 
wanderings make us familiar. 

The interest of the Dom is by no means con- 
fined to its history, to its handiwork, or to its 
nobly filled tombs. It contains, as the richest 
treasure of its High Altar, the holiest of all 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



105 



Christian relics, before which such lesser lights 
as the Ten Thousand Virgins at Cologne, and 
the cords of Fragments of the True Cross, the 
world over, must pale their ineffectual fires. All 
who are familiar with sacrilegious verse will easily 
recall the "Holy Coat in Trier.' , 

Short of the brass toe of St. Peter in Rome, 
no such touching appeal has been made to the 
tender credulity and devotion of the church's 
votaries, as here in the grim light of the Dom 
of Trier. Great force has shrewdly been added 
to the attraction by the extreme rarity with 
which it has been offered. Not more often than 
thrice in three centuries have the faithful been 
permitted to see, with the eye of the flesh, the 
veritable Seamless Coat for which lots were cast 
after the Crucifixion. The last exposition was 
in 1844, when the city was enriched by the 
pence spent for beer and bread and shelter by 
over a million pilgrims from all corners of Chris- 
tendom. 

The "Holy Coat" is said to have been found 
in the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in the year 
326, and to have been brought to Trier by St. 



io6 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Agritius, a companion of the Empress Helena. 
Its triumphal entry into the city through the 
Porta Nigra has been commemorated by a curi- 
ous old carving in ivory, representing the pro- 
cession and its noble spectators. 

As though it were not enough for one church, 
even in a once imperial city, to possess the verita- 
ble seamless garment, the Dom must needs 
boast, also, a box of solid gold, ornamented with 
precious stones and enamel, containing one of 
the nails of the crucifixion ; and the still further 
glory of a thorn from the veritable crown. Even 
a sceptic in such matters cannot stand without 
a certain emotion under the same roof with rel- 
ics which appeal to the innermost souls of so 
many millions of his fellow-men, and which — 
whatever their origin — -have been sanctified by 
so many centuries of reverent regard. 

Yet, I confess, that as I look back upon the 
Dom and the Liebfrauenkirche and the Cloisters, 
even with all their historic wealth of interest, 
that which comes most actively to the front in 
my mind is the recollection of a half-hour passed 
with its aged and unvenerable sacristan, — the 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



107 



" Spider-hunter of the Sacristy," as he calls him- 
self, — a blear-eyed, snuffy, skull-capped, rusty 
and fusty old fox, with no more reverence in his 
nature than the commonest of common showmen, 
and with the same sort of taking showman's 
witticisms that we know so well in other fields 
of the industry. 

We w r ere fortunate in having letters to Trier 
which opened the way for an insight into its 
more intimate character. More kindly and 
courteous and interested cicerones than these 
letters brought to our lot one could not desire. 
Concerning the home-life of these friends, of 
course, one cannot say more than that it was 
home-life as it is known all over the world, where 
the home has its best development, — nor of 
their hospitality, more than that it was gentle 
and generous and considerate. Neither was the 
advantage of our reception and entertainment 
confined to the passing pleasure of our sojourn, 
nor even to the remaining memory of pleasant 
new friendships formed ; it compassed, also, the 
rarest good fortune of travel, in that it gave a 
reality to our impressions of life in Trier. 



io8 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Nothing could have better suited with our 
mood or fitted better to the appreciation we had 
felt in passing it, than to be asked, after dinner, 
to spend the afternoon with our host at his 
country-place, " Monaise." The day was perfect, 
as were all of our afternoons in the Mosel-land, 
and we drove over the Roman bridge and up 
the western bank of the river through a broad 
and capitally cultivated valley, over a smooth 
macadam road, shaded with poplar and nut-wood 
trees, to the entrance of the estate. 

Monaise, a square and commodious house, with 
recessed north and south balconies on the upper 
and lower floors, — the upper ones commanding 
beautiful views up and down the river, and over 
and beyond the city's roofs, — is a country gen- 
tleman's house of the last century, and is sur- 
rounded with all of the appointments in the way 
of gardens, lawns, and summer-houses that prop- 
erly belong to such an establishment. On closer 
survey, we found no reason to modify the re- 
gard in which we had held it from our first view 
as the " Nancy " floated past it a few days before. 
It is an entirely charming country-place, with most 
attractive near and distant surroundings. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT, 



IO9 



The owner is a large vineyard proprietor of 
the lower Mosel, with valuable estates at the 
Brauneberg, and on others of the more noted 
wine-growing hillsides, and this estate of eighty- 
five acres, worth 200,000 francs ($40,000), is 
farmed only for its supply of manure for the vine- 
yards. As a family residence, it is one de trop 
the house in the city and another near the vine- 
yards sufficing for residence. It has the acces- 
sory advantage of being a most agreeable object 
for a walk or a drive, and of offering a sheltered 
balcony that is not to be surpassed for the family 
resort at the coffee hour on pleasant afternoons. 
The controlling argument for its retention is, 
however, the commercial one. It is a safe and 
good investment for capital, and it furnishes a 
large amount of manure free of cost, and within 
easy reach of the landing of the boats by which 
it is transported to the feet of the vine-growing 
hills. As an agricultural operation, the estate 
barely pays its expenses, — no more. The labor- 
ers are paid about two dollars per week, and 
the women about eighty cents per week. The 
milk is sold at the door at about three cents per 



no 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



quart, the milkman paying cash, morning and 
night,- — a curious instance of the total absence 
of the credit system that seems to prevail through- 
out the whole region. Potatoes sell for about 
thirty-five cents per bushel in average years, and 
these and the milk (and calves) constitute the 
most of what is sold. What the stable supplies 
to the manure-cart is the very satisfactory profit 
that is reaped. Stable manure — and that of 
the cow-stable, especially, is the best food for 
the greedy vines — is not only very costly, but 
very difficult to get. 

There are agricultural capabilities at Monaise 
that seem tempting, and some modifications of 
the agricultural system of the whole Mosel Val- 
ley suggest themselves quite naturally. Indeed, 
one who walks over the flat, fat fields of Mo- 
naise comes to think that an idle life here might 
well have the added attraction of very successful 
and profitable farming to relieve its ennuL 

A certain insight into the character of any 
town is to be gathered from the character of its 
social club, if it has one, and Trier has a very 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



1 1 1 



<fine one, " The Casino." This association has 
what must seem to one who knows the city only 
from its streets a very large membership (eight 
hundred). While its large building is plain, and 
almost entirely without the rich decoration of the 
club-houses of London and New York, it affords 
all that is needed for the comfort and pleasure of 
its frequenters, — beer, billiards, restaurant, read- 
ing-room, library, etc. In addition to these, there 
is at the rear a large and pleasant concert garden, 
and a large hall for music and dancing. There 
are frequent entertainments for ladies. The 
whole establishment is sensible, unpretentious, 
and commodious, and its example might well be 
followed in the expenditure of the large sums 
which our own clubs devote to less useful and 
•more ornamental ends. 

At a side table in the billiard-room of this 
casino, over a bottle of Saar wine, I had ari 
hours talk with a kindly "advocat" about the 
Prussian school system and the present condi- 
tion of the Church question. All this was very 
instructive and very entertaining, and it seems 
hardly fair to condense it into a few paragraphs. 



112 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



In brief: Education is absolutely compulsory, 
and the state exercises the strictest surveillance, 
except where, as in the case of well-to-do families, 
children are obviously receiving sufficient instruc- 
tion. Others are required to attend the public 
schools from a very early age until fourteen years 
old, and they are thoroughly grounded in the ele- 
mentary instruction that is given in our own pub- 
lic schools of the same grade, — which in many 
respects they resemble. 

The agricultural population have the great ad- 
vantage over ours, that, as they live in villages, 
their local schools are larger and can afford bet- 
ter teachers. Practically, the teachers are very 
much better, and they are almost never changed, 
except by promotion. The schoolmaster is an 
officer of the state, holding his position for life, 
or during good behavior ; and he is encouraged 
by this certainty, and by the chance of promotion 
for merit, to render his best services. Incident- 
ally, his condition shows how little is needed for 
an incentive in Germany. 

The condition of the teacher has been improved 
in these later years, and promises to become im- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



"3 



proved still farther. Not very long ago the vil- 
lage teacher had one room, and a salary of from 
forty to fifty dollars per annum. He now has 
several rooms, — he is much addicted to a large 
family, — and a small bit of ground for a garden. 
His salary has been advanced to about $ 120 per 
annum for the lowest grade. Even this is a pit- 
tance, but it is to be remembered that he has the 
further income of an inherited habit of economy, 
such as would appall the most close-fitting of our 
own New England population, and the number is 
not small among these local teachers, who lay by 
a dot for a daughter, or a starting-fund for a son. 

It is not easy to gather from personal conversa- 
tion the whole truth about the Church question in 
Germany, for feeling runs high on one side or the 
other. Trier is a Catholic city, and every one 
either cares very much that the Catholic Church 
should retain its old supremacy, or cares quite as 
much that no one should care anything at all 
about it. It becomes almost difficult to say which 
is the bigot, he who is devoted to his church, or 
or he who is devoted to his opposition to the 
church. 



114 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



To many, one of the chief attractions of this city 
would be its public library, which is housed in the 
old Jesuit convent, behind the Trierscher Hof. 
It contains over one hundred thousand volumes, 
— none of them works of fiction, — and is a val- 
uable store of scientific, historical, and belles-let- 
tres information. It ranks in this regard as a 
first-class provincial library. Beyond this, its 
treasures are rare and curious, and some of them 
quite unique. Its great prize is the Codex Au- 
rum, which was presented to the convent of St. 
Maximin by Charlemagne's sister, Ada. It con- 
tains the four Gospels, written on parchment in 
letters of gold, and has fine miniatures of the 
Evangelists. Its binding is of the most richly 
carved massive silver, heavily gilded, and set with 
many precious stones. One of these is a large and 
beautifully sculptured onyx, probably representing 
the family of Augustus. This manuscript was 
sent after the French invasion to enrich the 
library of the Louvre, and on the restoration of 
plundered treasures to Germany, after Waterloo, 
it was reported as "not to be found" Happily, 
its finding and restoration to Trier was made a 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



1 1 5 



successful diplomatic question. There are more 
than four thousand other manuscripts, many of 
them of curious value, and over twenty-five hun- 
dred incunabula of fine editions. 

The library is used by visiting readers, and its 
books are freely circulated throughout the city for 
home reading and study. We found the librarian, 
a most intelligent and amiable gentleman, ready 
to give us every information, and proud and glad 
to show the treasures upon which he bestows an 
obviously tender care, — washing with his own 
hands the soiled parchment and vellum covers 
and allowing no one to assist him even in the 
arrangement and dusting of the shelves. He left 
a casual reader in charge of the library, and went 
with us to another part of the building to open 
the Museum, in which are stored the archaeo- 
logical and artistic treasures of the city's "So- 
ciety of Useful Research." This collection, unlike 
those of most museums, is almost exclusively local 
in its character, there being few articles exhibited 
that have not been discovered in the excavations 
and dredgings in and about the city. There is a 
very complete collection of nearly all of the gold 



n6 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



and silver and copper coins of the Roman Em- 
pire. The jewels, of every description, date from 
a century ago all the way back to prehistoric 
times. 

At Paris and elsewhere, in the great cities, 
one is permitted only to examine such treas- 
ures through plate glass, but here, so great is 
the faith in the honesty of mankind, one is 
allowed to jingle together the gold coins of the 
twelve Caesars, to put Greek and Etruscan rings 
upon one's fingers, and to try the effect of the 
oldest brooches as fastenings for a modern shawl. 
This familiar handling gives a reality to the ob- 
jects themselves that a mere look at them as they 
are arranged in their cases cannot at ail equal. 

For ourselves, we lodged during our stay, as we 
had done on previous visits, at the snug and well- 
kept Trierscher Hof, and this perhaps is to be 
advised to those who intend making a long stay ; 
but there is about the Rothes Haus, on the 
Market Square, — opposite the cross that marks 
the spot where Constantine saw the cross in the 
sky, — a wonderful richness and quaintness of 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT, 



117 



mediaeval architecture that must make it far more 
attractive to the casual visitor. Mediaeval ceilings 
are low, and mediaeval staircases are steep, but 




THE " ROTHES HAUS " ON THE MARKET SQUARE IN TRIER. 



the house itself is admirably kept, and I am quite 
sure that had our first visit fallen there, we should 
never have deserted it. 



n8 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



The facade of this house is no less curious than 
its interior, and it is one of the most marked and 
historically interesting buildings of the city, dating 
back to the best time of the Middle Ages. Along 
its front are statues of the four patron saints of 
Trier, and, higher, two good antique figures of 
knights in armor. 

Not the least memorable of our experience 
about Trier was an afternoon drive to the vine- 
yard of Griinhaus, — the source of the celebrated 
Griinhauser Mosel wine. It is five miles away, — 
over a straight, smooth, and beautifully shaded 
road leading from the Porta Nigra, — past St. 
Paulin and St. Maximin down the broad and 
fertile plain below the city to the little village 
of Ruwer, and thence, by the deep and pictu- 
resque valley of the Ruwerbach, to the high-lying, 
vine-clad hills in the interior. Unfortunately, the 
proprietor, to whom we had letters, was absent in 
Switzerland, and we had only our drive for our 
pains ; but a drive over such a road, under the 
high green hill that still bears the remains of the 
aqueduct by which the Roman capital was supplied 
with water from the Ruwer, through such luxu- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



riant fields, and under such a September sky, 
leaves nothing to be regretted even though its 
purpose were defeated. 

Midway of the road we came upon the work of 
building a bridge by which the Mosel is to be 
crossed by the railroad which Germany is build- 
ing to bring it into more complete and rapid 
communication with its great military outpost at 
Metz, and which, here and there, promises to do 
so much to destroy the quiet charm of this beau T 
tiful valley. The work in hand was pile-driving, 
and here we saw the great difference in methods 
between Germanv and America, — between dear 
labor and cheap labor. The heavy iron weight 
of the pile-driver was lifted, not by steam, as with 
us, but by twenty men standing on a raft, pul- 
ling at twenty ropes each attached to the end of 
the main cable of the machine, raising the weight 
and suddenly loosening it with a measured stroke, 
— singing, the while, like sailors at the main-sheet. 



CHAPTER VI. 



FROM TRIER TO BERNKASTEL. 

URING our stay at Trier we had en- 
gaged a skilful boat-builder to remodel 
the interior fittings of the " Nancy," 
giving her a drier floor, a locker, and wider 
seats, — making her in all respects a comfortable 
and home-like little skiff for our further use, — 
and the time had at last come for our embarka- 
tion. 

Some friends had kindly offered to go with us 
as far as to the country-seat of friends of theirs, 
five miles down the river, at Quint ; and our last 
act was to buy and fill a fruit-basket for the jour- 
ney. It was' a market morning, and the little 
square was literally crammed with peasants hav- 
ing all manner of products for sale. Such a dis- 
play of fruit, and in such endless variety, I have 




IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



121 



never seen elsewhere, nor have I seen even ordin- 
ary fruit sold at such prices as were asked for the 
best here. Golden and purple plums as large as 
eggs, magnificent looking (but tasteless) peaches, 
perfect pears of the best French and Belgian va- 
rieties, apples, and various grapes, — enough for 
our two days' supply, — cost, in all, only twenty- 
eight cents. The quantity was greater, and the 
quality better, than could be bought for five dol- 
lars at the fancy fruit-stores in Broadway. 

At last we were afloat, five persons and a little 
dog, — the cockswain at the tiller ropes, and the 
writer at the oars, — sliding gently down the 
stream, taking a last look at the towers and 
house-tops of the city, and at the picturesque 
old bath-house that marks its limit on the rivers 
bank. We were greeted with the universal cry 
of " Ingelander, Ingelander," from the children on 
the shore, who condemn as Englishmen all of 
the occasional skiff-tourists of the Mosel, — hail- 
ing them with this half-derisive cry at every 
village from Trier to the Ehine. 

As far as Quint the valley remains only less 
broad than it is below Metz, but the hills are 



122 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



higher and they draw together in front of us, 
closing the plain as in a basin. At Quint there 
is one of the most celebrated iron-works of Ger- 
many, and it and its buildings constitute the 
whole village, — a clattering, smoking, noisy, 
grimy village, with sweating, half-naked men, 
seething red-hot rolled iron, panting engines, and 
vomited smoke filling the recollection of all who 
have landed at its cinder-made wharf. 

A little wicket at the side of the works opens 
into the charming garden of the proprietors 
country-house, — a long, high, and imposing 
stone house of the last century, with a broad, 
elevated porch sheltered under heavy clustering 
vines, which cover a roof-like trellis, and ramble 
on the very house-top. The porch is approached 
by broad steps, which are flanked to the very 
ends of the house with solid slopes of superb 
geraniums in full bloom. Under these vines, 
and at the brink of this hillside of blossom, we 
took our afternoon coffee with our gracious and 
kindly hostess, and afterward walked through 
the exquisite hillside park, over well-kept paths 
leading to the height above, with a sunset view 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



123 




over the val- 
ley and the 
city and the 
convents and 
the cathe- 
drals and the 
church - tow- 
ers, — and 
^ still on, over 
g Monaise and 
I the Char- 

Q 

§ treuse, to 
> the hills 

u 

t near Igel, 
w beyond the 
mouth of 
the Saar, 
nine miles 
away, — and 
still farther 
on to the 
hazy blue 
horizon of 
Luxemburg. 



124 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



It was deepening twilight when we had wan- 
dered to the valley and bade good-by to our 
friends, — leaving them to return by rail, and 
setting out at last, quite by ourselves, for the 




real beginning of our Mosel tour, — our solitude 
a deux. 

As we glided out into the stream, there was 
just enough left of twilight to show its dimpling 
eddies, and vaguely to define the banks, where 
there glinted and glowed here and there the 
lamps and the hearth-fires of the little snug-lying 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



125 



villages. The air was full of the voices of men 
and women, and of the shouts and laughter of 
boys and girls, hidden under the dusky shadows 
on either hand, or perhaps watering a horse at 
the river s brink, or coming home from the fields 
along the riverside road. The belching chim- 
neys of Quint poured out their dark red flame,, 
and sent a curtain of black smoke floating off' 
over the hill-tops, toward which the young- moon, 
was slowly setting. 

The course of the river lay almost directly 
across the broad valley. • It seemed in the dusk 
like a long and dimly defined lake, stretching 
from the high black hills of Quint to the higher 
and blacker hills which open to give it passage 
at Kirsch. On either hand lay the low banks of 
the fertile plain, with rows and groves of nut- 
trees and fruit-trees standing in silhouette against 
the deepening sky and the thick-studded stars. 
A fisherman's boat, with a torch at the bow, shot 
swiftly past us, moved by the quick-falling, short 
stroke peculiar to Mosel oarsmen. 

For the first time, and on the warmest, calm- 
est, sweetest, and darkest of early September 



126 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



evenings, we were quite alone, floating rather 
than rowing down the Mosel, ■ — its smooth-flow- 
ing stream leading us mysteriously along its un- 
known course, — pausing to listen to the strange 
sounds and to dream over the strange suggestive 
shadows and outlines of closing night. The 
slowly rolling water gave us all the impulse we 
wished, and could we have consumed the whole 
night in the idyllic passage of the two short 
miles to Schweich, we could have asked no bet- 
ter recompense for all our journey, even had not 
our journey been filled with delight from its very 
outset. 

But, even at the snail's pace of the unaided 
current, our short trip drew to an end, — and 
such an end ! Though we travelled the whole 
length of the navigable river, and wandered at 
will among its outlying hills and through its 
charming side valleys; though it maybe given- 
to us to wander in other lands and to float down 
other streams, none of our experiences have 
effaced, and none can ever efface, the ineffable 
charm of our approach to the ferry at Schweich. 
It first manifested itself by the clattering of ox- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



127 



en's feet and the rumbling of wheels over the rat- 
tling planks of the ferry-boat, and by the calls and 
replies of voices from either unseen shore ; then, 
far away among the hills to our left, came the 
faint sound of a well-rung post-horn, made sil- 
very by distance and by the heavy evening air. 
Then lanterns were hung at the riverside towers, 
and preparations were made for receiving the 
lumbering Koblenz post-coach. Ever nearer and 
nearer came the winding horn, — growing, as it 
approached, into a ringing, twanging cadence, 
ending as the coach swung down the hard hill- 
side road and clattered upon the boat. Then 
came the clearly audible salutations between the 
ferry-men and the postman, and the delivery of 
the freshest news from down the river, — with 
jokes and laughs in a merry round until the 
mail rolled off on the floor-like road to Trier, —■ 
the high close-lying hills echoing the horn with 
a never-ending refrain. A fresh team was taken 
aboard, and the boat started on its return trip as 
the " Nancy " hove in sight through the gloom. 
Then came a loud " Bewahr /" and we were 
cautioned to look out for the chain, — a caution 



128 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



that came all too late, and which, indeed, con- 
veyed no meaning to our untutored minds, until, 
with a sharp hissing sound, the thin iron links 
sprung from the river and carried away the side 
rail of our canopy frame. Luckily, this was all ; 
a few feet more and it would have carried our 
skiff itself out of the water, for the strong tide 
had taken full hold of the ferry-boat, tightening 
its stout support like a tendril of steel. The 
danger was passed before it was realized, but its 
possibilities gave a heart-beat that recurs to this 
day. 

On either shore stands a high, round, whitened 
stone tower, capped with a sharp extinguisher- 
shaped roof, built by the last Elector of Trier, — 
Kurfiirst Clemens Wenceslaus. Behind these 
towers, and braced by them, tall ship-masts of 
wood stretch up to hold the guy-rope of the 
ferry. Gn this guy runs a pulley-wheel, from 
which depends the stout long-linked chain which 
holds the craft to its course. One end or the 
other of the boat is headed slightly up-stream, 
and the moving current gives it its forward pro- 
pulsion. It was on this chain that depended 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 1 29 

so nearly the safety of the " Nancy " and her 
crew. 

The ferry-man took charge of our craft and of 
our heavy luggage, and a young peasant shoul- 
dered our smaller parcels and led us over the 
long road to the village, where we were to get 
our first experience of a Mosel gasthans at the 
" Hotel Johannetges." Here we had a comforta- 
ble supper of kalbsbraten, with wine and seltzer- 
water. We had good spring-beds on mahogany 
bedsteads, perfectly clean linen crash sheets, and 
the smallest modicum of washing-water possible, 
even to the German estimate of what ablution 
requires. Abundant white table-linen and a 
sufficiently good service, an obliging landlady, 
and unmistakably good coffee with our rye bread 
and jelly in the morning impressed us, from be- 
ginning to end, with the difference between a 
Mosel gasthaus and a well-reputed hotel in one 
of our own Eastern college towns at which we 
had recently passed a night of torture, and had 
struggled with an impossible breakfast. 

At any ordinary time we should have been 
entirely comfortable and at our ease, but we had 



130 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



fallen on the period of the annual pilgrimage 
to the Healing Saint of Kloster Klausen. Late 
into the night heavy peasant footfalls belabored 
the staircase and poured into the rooms above 
us, which must have been literally packed with 
pious humanity. Even the stable-loft, across the 
little court from our window, was filled with pil- 
grims ; and beer flowed, the whole night through, 
in the public room below us. At the earliest 
dawn these people started on their way, and 
throng after throng passed through the village, 
chanting sacred anthems as they went. 

The stern rule of the new Empire has shorn 
these frequent pilgrimages throughout Catholic 
Germany of much of their picturesqueness. It 
is no longer permitted to carry the decorated 
banners of former times, nor may the pilgrims 
even march in regular processions, but they 
wander on in groups, — those from each village 
by themselves, — trudging over weary miles of 
road, chanting as they go, and tending from 
every corner of wide regions toward the central 
shrine to which they offer up their annual de- 
votions. Picturesque they no longer are, the 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



131 



more is the pity, but they are led by a simple 
and unquestioning devotion which carries ob- 
vious peace to their minds, and which offers a 
gentler phase of religious enthusiasm, — a sim- 
pler trust and a quieter and more persistent faith, 
— than can be found in the religious demon- 
strations of the more enthusiastic Protestant 
sects among us and in England. Here and 
there, throughout all our Mosel tour, we fre- 
quently met bodies of pilgrims going to this 
shrine or to that ; as though taking, in their 
quiet way, a recreation, which the closing of the 
vineyards, before the vintage begins, allows to 
the laboring classes of all wine-growing coun- 
tries. Apart from other uses, these pilgrim- 
ages serve, in a way, the purpose of our own 
Eastern clam-bakes, which give an " outing " 
at a dull season to our hard-worked farmers. 

Before breakfast, I wandered through the vil- 
lage. It is an old, tumble-down, unimproved, 
peaceful, busy little valley town of two thousand 
inhabitants, without a single fine house, and with 
more than a fair proportion of old and tattered 
cottages. It was noticeable to us, chiefly, from 



132 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



being the first, as it was one of the least inter- 
esting, of the Mosel villages that we saw. It lies 
too far from the river to have the added fasci- 
nation that the Mosel, and its constant beauty 
and life, give even to the smallest and most un- 
pretending of its little dorfs. 

We were early afloat, and turned our backs for 
the last time upon the magnificent valley which 
enshrines the city of Trier, a turn of the river 
carrying us through a narrow gorge of the moun- 
tains, — the gateway to one of the few mediaeval 
lands from which modern improvements and 
modern conveniences and modern advancement 
have kindly withheld their hand. 

Our view reached scarcely three miles, yet we 
had in sight the quaint old church-towers and 
irregular house-tops of six villages, nestling un- 
der the vineyard-terraced hillsides, or stretching 
through orchards and gardens over the narrow 
intervale which lies- at the feet of high hills and 
shaded slopes. Xo foot of the land is wasted ; 
no ray of sunshine but pays tribute in wine. 
Only where the surface is turned too much from 
the sun, and where even costly terracing cannot 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



133 



give it a fair exposure, is anything else than the 
vine allowed a foothold on these hillsides. Where 
the vine cannot be grown, there we find fruit- 
trees or forest-trees, or grass or arable land, ac- 
cording to the needs of the minute and thorough 
agriculture of the people. 

At the time of our visit the vineyards were 
closed by law, against even their owners, — 
awaiting the ripening of the grapes. This gave 
more life to the villages, and increased somewhat 
the riverside gossiping and lounging of both men 
and women. It had, probably, much to do with 
our impression of the pleasantness and activity 
of the village life of the peasants, who at other 
seasons are working in the fields, or high up in 
the vineyards, returning late at night to their 
clustering homes, and seeking an early couch. 
On our former trip down the river the women 
had seemed almost universally occupied with 
their field-work, which consisted, too often, in 
trudging up the steep vineyard paths, their back- 
baskets heavily laden with manure for the vines. 
The men followed them, with rake or hoe over 
the shoulder, and pipe in the mouth. 



134 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Now, a certain amount of field-work of various 
sorts is being done ; casks are being hauled, 
fagots are being stored for the winters fuel, hill- 
side woodland is being cleared and burned, and 
the men generally are pretty steadily and lei- 
surely occupied in work of secondary importance. 
The women flock generally, one would almost say 
chiefly, to the Mosel, where, from Monday morn- 
ing until Saturday night, they chat and scold and 
laugh and wash. Whether all of the washing of 
a wide back-country is done at the Mosel side 
during these few weeks of the year, I cannot say ; 
but from Metz to Koblenz our course lay through 
an almost uninterrupted succession of women 
washing, scrubbing,, pounding, rinsing, drying, 
sprinkling, and transporting some form of zvasche. 

Possibly, in all, five miles of the river-bank 
were spread with heavy home-made linen cloth, 
bleaching in the sun, Mosel water (which, of 
course, has distinguished virtues for this use) 
being flirted upon it with long scoops, sprinkled 
upon it with garden watering-pots, or spattered 
over it with wet brooms. From these thousands 
of yards of new-made cloth, house linen and 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



135 



shirts, and garments of every washable descrip- 
tion, branched off as from a main stem. As a 
matter of statistics it seemed simply impossible 
that even the crowded population of these fre- 
quent villages could possibly use, or even own, 
the enormous laundry-work displayed along our 
route. 

Nothing would seem to offer less interest for a 
tourist than the clothes-washing of the people 
through whom his tour lies ; yet, on reflection, I 
think that we are more indebted to the women 
by whom this Mosel-side washing is done for the 
impression of life and activity that appears so 
fresh in our reminiscences, than to any other ele- 
ment, save the innumerable children ; and these 
latter were hidden from our view during the long 
school-hours by the operation of an inexorable 
law, — appearing in all their vivacity, and noise, 
and impudence, and jollity, only during the late 
afternoon and the early evening. 

I have sometimes wondered, too, whether one 
whose ear had not been trained to the peculiar 
dialect of the Mosel people would get from these 
sturdy and light-hearted washerwomen the same 



136 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



running accompaniment that cheered our de- 
lightful trip. Elsewhere in Germany the lan- 
guage of the people called for my studied atten- 
tion, but here, where the speech of Dudeldorf — 
learned at Ogden Farm — flows in a steady 
stream from Trier to the Rhine, the constant 
and varied light gossip of the hard-working and 
often half-immersed riverside washerwomen was 
observed without an effort, and gave to the voy- 
age an element of the simplest and lightest hu- 
man sentiment, such as must be lost to the 
average traveller. It was at first almost start- 
ling, and it was always instructive, to note the 
degree to which human nature, pure and unde- 
filed, finds its development among these people, 
— who are so shut out from the influences which 
have moulded American village life. The same 
joys and sorrows, the same jealousies and small 
ambitions which we know at home, are con- 
stantly developed over the pounding-boards and 
sprinkling-pots of the Mosel ; and we soon come 
to see that the distinction that divides our neigh- 
bors at home from the people along our route is 
one of degree only, — not at all of kind. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



137 



This is probably less true in the one important 
matter of honesty. I make no question that these 
people will lie to each other ; that they will cheat 
their blood relations ; nor that they are capable 
of meannesses which find no deeper development 
even among the meanest of our own race ; but 
in matters affecting the possession of personal 
property, the people living along the Mosel 
are, undoubtedly, more than scrupulously honest. 
Stealing, or rather pilfering, except within cer- 
tain well-defined limits, is absolutely unknown. 
We several times asked whether it would be safe 
to leave our small effects in charge of the ferry- 
man, on quitting our boat, and the question 
seemed, at first, not to be understood. When 
understood, the affirmative answer was given, 
almost with an air of astonishment. So marked 
was this, that I asked information about it from a 
Bonn professor whom I had the good fortune to 
meet on the river. He said that these people 
are absolutely without the vice of thieving ; 
that, even in the large city of Trier, it is a much 
disregarded formality to lock the street-door of a 
house at night ; and that, especially in the vil- 



138 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



lages, any article of personal property, of however 
slight value, and however hardly identified, may 
with safety be left lying at the river-bank. The 
idea of taking the property of others seems never 
to enter the simple and primitive minds of these 
peasants. Learning this, we grew careless of our 
smaller " traps," and were, at last, somewhat 
startled to be told, as w r e neared the Rhine, that 
our trifles would be safer under lock and key than 
if left exposed to tempt the poorer people of these 
more sophisticated Rhineland villages. 

This was my first day at the oars, — the first 
for many years, — and it seemed an especial 
advantage of the Mosel that its riverside attrac- 
tions were so great and so frequent that one could 
have constant reason for abandoning the skiff to 
the current while examining and discussing and 
wondering over the changing novelty of the river- 
side life, questioning the people along the banks, 
chatting with ferry-men, giving assurances that 
we were not " Ingelander," remarking upon the 
age and the universal picturesqueness of every 
building, from the meanest cottage to the lean- 
ing church-towers ; and at times estimating the 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



139 



strokes that would be needed to land us within 
the eddies of the next series of jetties, — where 
the narrowed and rushing current would sweep 
us down a rapid. 

During the whole day, our course lay through 
one of the narrowest parts of the Mosel valley. 
On one side or the other, the little intervale was 
filled with village and field and orchard, and on 
the opposite side, always, a high steep hill was 
terraced with vineyards in the sun, or overgrown 
with forest-trees in the shade. It is not easy to 
carry relative heights in one's eye, and the width 
of water has much to do with apparent elevation ; 
but, with no statistics to guide me, I should say 
that the hills that enclose the Mosel, here as 
throughout nearly the whole of its lower course, 
are as high, as abrupt, and as varied as are the 
banks of the Hudson for the few miles between 
Peekskill and West Point, with all the differ- 
ence that vineyard cultivation, frequent ruins 
of towers and castles, better kept forests, and 
thick clustering mediaeval villages can give, — a 
difference which, at least when helped by the 
sensation of entire novelty and strangeness, is 
all in favor of the less familiar scene. 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



It is, perhaps, more creditable to my interest in 
a new land, than to my industry and endurance 
as an oarsman, that, with a favorable and often 
rapid current it took us from nine in the morning 
until two in the afternoon to cover a distance of 
ten miles ; but, as we look back over the experi- 
ence of that delightful morning, we have no other 
regret than that we failed to stretch out our trip 
to nightfall. At two, we had still twenty miles to 
make to reach our destination at Bernkastel, and 
I yielded to the unflattering suggestion of the 
cockswain that we should call for help. Inquir- 
ing at the grass-grown and gravel-edged wash- 
house of Koeverich, where one might find a man 
to row us to Bernkastel, a stalwart young laun- 
dress offered her own services, but yielded in 
favor of the husband of her companion, and he 
was quickly brought from the field where he was 
at work. 

He was a wiry young baner, dark-eyed, thin and 
active, and withal a pleasant-looking, intelligent 
fellow, and quick and enduring as a steel spring. 
His strokes were at least sixty to the minute, and 
they were kept up, minute after minute, and al- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



most hour after hour, without intermission. At 
long intervals, he would stop to light his pipe 
with flint and steel, and, late in the day, when the 
plank on which he sat seemed to have become as 
hard as his own flinty thighs, he took off a thin 
linen jacket, folded it into the smallest suggestion 
of a cushion, and pulled steadily on. 

A long bend in the river brought us in view of 
the beautiful old village of Trittenheim, noted in 
the guide-books as the birthplace of Johannes 
Trithemius, who, born "of poor but honest par- 
ents" (in 1462), sought opportunities for study at 
the more noted seats of learning, became a man 
of profound philosophic lore, and, afterward a 
conspicuous teacher and philosopher at Frank- 
fort, and subsequently at Cologne. 

With the constant strong impulse of our cheap- 
ly hired oarsman, we pressed on through a valley 
full of beauty to Neumagen. Here, too, Con- 
stantine is said to have seen in the sky the fiery 
cross which led him to Christianity, and here in 
the high-lying hills, his army sank into the earth 
to come forth again at the last day. The old 
German legend, however, relates that not Con- 



142 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



stantine, but the reigning Emperor of Germany, 
sank with his army into the earth on the moun- 
tain-top. Here, to this day, he sits, deep in the 
ground, sleeping at a red sandstone table. When 
his beard shall have grown three times around 
the table, then will he come forth with his army, 
march to the Zweibackerhof at Neumagen, and 
conquer the Turk. When this happens, then an- 
tichrist will come, and the world will end. This 
is the Mosel " Friedrich Barbarossa." 

There are left at Neumagen no remains of the 
" god-like " castle of Constantine, but the rural 
and majestic beauty that Ausonius so well de- 
scribes has not lessened. However, — what with 
the accumulated appetite that our day's journey 
had supplied was to us more important, — there is 
a snug little vine-clad arbor in front of the Hotel 
Claeren, where one is served with as comfortable 
a dinner, and as comforting a bottle of good Mo- 
sel wine, as a tired and happy traveller need ask 
in this world. 

We left Neumagen at five. The sun soon 
sunk behind the hills, but appeared again as our 
course swept around beneath the noted vineyard 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



143 



slope of Piesport, — the uppermost of the cele- 
brated Mosel-wine grounds. Later, but before 
the twilight had perceptibly deepened, the moon 
came out over the mountains and kept us con- 




BERNKASTEL, FROM AN OLD CUT. 



stant company throughout our remaining trip, 
lending, if possible, an even greater charm to the 
continued beauty of every step of our way ; and 
still later, after night had fairly fallen, adding its 



144 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



sparkle along the water to the reflection of the 
lights and hearth-fires streaming through the 
windows and open doors of the villages we 
passed. 

Our whole day's row of thirty miles led us past 
more than thirty villages on the banks, and in 
view of others nestling back in the narrow gorges 
and valleys opening into the river from either 
side. 

Passing under the fine modern bridge at Bern- 
kastel, — a sad disfigurement after the pictu- 
resque old chain ferry that had served so well for 
centuries, — we landed at the ferry pier, and sent 
for the porter of the " Three Kings " to dispose 
our boat safely and load our movables upon his 
truck. We paid our oarsman a pittance for his 
twenty-mile row, and he started cheerily home 
over the hills, by a far shorter route than we had 
followed. A slight addition of irinkgeld made 
him happy, and he evidently thought lightly of 
the long walk that would bring him to his house 
in the small hours of the night. 



CHAPTER VII. 



BERNKASTEL. 

HE " Three Kings" at Bernkastel is one 
of the few somewhat pretentious houses 
along the river ; but its pretension comes 
of its old fame and its somewhat hotel-like ap- 
pointments, rather than from any interference 
with its simplicity and homeliness. Its land- 
lord, Herr Gassen, has had an English training, 
speaks the language well, and shares with his 
English-speaking wife the care of the tourist 
class of guests. We remained here from Satur- 
day night till Tuesday night, with parlor and 
bedroom, private table, capital food, and good 
wine in plenty, for a total charge of $13, — a 
large share of which was paid for our education 
in the matter of various Mosel wines, including 
especially the celebrated Bernkasteler Doctor, one 
of the best of the still wines, and famed in Ger- 
man song. 




146 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



A retainer of Bishop Bohemund carried on his 
back to him, for his cure from a fatal illness, a 
barrel of this golden wine. The bishop cast the 
medicine glass aside and drank from the spigot 
until the wine ran dry. Then he sang : — 

" The wine, the wine, has cured me quite, 
It is the best of doctors. " 

Being in sound health, we did not deem it 
necessary to carry our trial quite to the pre- 
scribed extent, but we were ready to believe that 
many an ill might be as surely, and far more 
pleasantly, healed by this doctor than by an- 
other. 

If one could visit only one of the Mosel towns, 
I should by all means hold up Bernkastel as the 
most characteristic and the most charming. As 
seen from the river, much of its old character has 
been destroyed by the bridge, — which elsewhere 
would be admired as a fine one, but which here 
has hidden one or two of the finer facades, has 
destroyed the river-side garden of the parsonage, 
and has turned the old shore sadly cut of grade, 
— and by a few fine new houses being built be- 
low the town. But the moment we pass back 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



H7 



from the river-side street we plunge at once into 
an almost inconceivably quaint, picturesque, and 
curious mass of 
mediaeval houses 
overhanging nar- 
row, crooked 
streets, and offer- 
ing, one after an- 
other, an endless 
variety of the best % 
of the village ar- lij 
chitecture of the 
Gothic age. The 
old city of Ches- L 
ter is meagre and f!|, 
modern compared 
with this crowd- 
ed little village. 
"God's Provi- 
dence House," in the former city, where the or- 
namental plastering and carving of the interior 
decoration of an old building are paraded on the 
facade of its modern successor, is too small and 
too obviously new to carry that suggestiveness 




A HOUSE-FRONT IN BERNKASTEL. 



I48 TWO HUNDRED MILES 



of real Gothic work that we here see on every 
side. 

The front of carved timber and plaster, with 
broad windows filled with little leaded panes, as 
in the illustration on the previous page, is by no 




AN OLD COURT IN BERN K AS TEL, 



means exceptional in Bernkastel. It is as a whole 
the finest thing of its kind to be seen there, but it 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



149 



is of a kind of which there are very many capi- 
tal examples. Not only is the wood artistically 
arranged with reference to the intervening ma- 




A MOSEL KITCHEN. 

sonry, but it is most liberally and delicately carved ; 
and, as it stands, it would hardly be amiss for the 
interior decoration of a baronial hall. The houses 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



quite generally overhang at each story, and two 
or three extremely quaint specimens, standing by 
themselves, have for their foundation the merest 
little elongated tower of masonry, with huge cor- 
bels of stone or carved wood, supporting the pro- 
jecting frame of the superstructure. The inte- 
riors, too, of all of these houses that we examined 
are quite worthy of their outward look. Narrow, 
winding stone staircases, ponderous division 
walls, floors rising and falling with varied undu- 
lation, windows and doors awry and askew, — all 
fall short of dilapidation by the solidity of their 
material and the richness of their workmanship. 
Curiously forged iron and brass knockers and 
bell-pulls and door-handles and hinges and es- 
cutcheons abound on every hand. 

The ruddy-looking, bright-eyed, cheerful, and 
industrious people, with hordes of chubby red- 
cheeked children, have about them in their dress 
and in their manner as little that is modern as 
the most enthusiastic antiquarian could ask for. 

My first look at the town was by moonlight, 
late on the Saturday night of our arrival, and 
surely the moon could serve nowhere a more 



IN A MOSEL RO W-BOA T. I 5 I 

picturesque office than in gilding the facades and 
in deepening the shadows of these friendly old 
houses of Bernkastel, which lean so cozily against 
each other for support, and nod so cordially to 
each other across the narrow, crooked streets. 
The streets themselves were wellnigh deserted, 
and the town had mainly gone to rest ; but, 
here and there, through a low deep casement, 
one heard noisy mirth, and saw in the hands of 
weather-beaten peasants high stone beer-mugs, 
such as we have been taught by the older 
Dutch painters to locate in the Netherlands, in 
the olden time. It was like awakening from a 
dream to be greeted in modern language, on re- 
turning to the hotel. 

Sauntering through the town, late on Sunday 
morning when the people were at church and 
the streets almost deserted, it was surprising to 
see how little, after all, the picturesqueness of 
the architecture had depended on the moonlight. 
What was lost in boldness of light and shadow 
was quite compensated for by the frequency with 
which the detail of rich workmanship discovered 
itself. I could not learn that Bernkastel had 



152 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



ever been an especially prosperous town, nor that 
it was ever the seat of a luxurious, rich people, 
but it seemed incredible that a simple peasantry, 
or even the bold retainers of the robber knight, 
whose old castle of " Landshut " still sits grandly 
on the hill above the town, could have been rich 
enough to provide themselves with houses built 
at such cost of skilled labor. The best of the 
work dates back to the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries, and the work then done was so solid 
and substantial that few, if any, of the more mod- 
ern houses vie, except in the regularity of their 
lines, with their older and more ornamented 
neighbors. 

If it is possible for such a little town as this to 
have in its suburbs a charm even greater than 
that of its streets, Bernkastel may boast that 
good fortune. The Diefbach, a busy, noisy, use- 
ful stream, tumbles down from the high hills 
behind, through a narrow and rock-hung gorge, 
where mill-wheels cling to the shelves of pro- 
jecting slate, and swing their huge w 7 et arms in 
the drip ot the brook, and where, for mile after 
mile, the views up and down the ravine are hardly 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



153 



inferior to the one here given, where, looking 
through a chasm of rock fringed with the droop- 
ing branches of trees, and overhung by a forest- 
clad mountain-side, one sees, in the full evening 




LANDSHUT. — FROM THE DEIFBACH ROAD. 



light, the majestic old castle which has been in 
ruins since the time of Louis XIV., a ruin which 
for simple dignity and for grandeur of situation 
has few equals in the Rhineland. 

As I stood leaning over the side-rail of the 
road, dreaming over this view and the historic 



154 



TWO HCXDRED MILES 



associations it suggested, my attention was at- 
tracted by a low monotonous chant far down the 
valley. Presently there came in sight what was 
evidently a peasant family, father and son, mother 
and several small children. They were walking 
well apart from each other, with a slow and 
measured tread, their hands folded and their eyes 
cast down, chanting an evening anthem as they 
went on their picturesque way home from church. 

My ramble ended with a long, slow stroll 
through the ever-interesting streets of the town. 
Later there came into our windows the flowing 
and swelling music of the vesper service in the 
church near by. Making my way through the 
edges of the crowd that filled the building to 
its very threshold, I stood for some time in 
interested observation of the Roman Catholic 
service as performed before a congregation of 
villagers and peasants who, for some generations, 
have had much more instruction than the corre- 
sponding classes of Southern Europe. 

There was obviously no less faith and trust in 
the all-important power and influence of the 
church, and no less willing obedience to the 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



155 



slightest behests of its time-honored customs. 
On the other hand, there seemed to be far more 
devoutness, and a much more intelligent under- 
standing of what adherence to a fixed form of 




OLD HOUSES IN BERNKASTEL. 



religion implies. A very large part of the ser- 
vice consisted in congregational singing, there 
being apparently no official choir, — only an or- 
ganist. With the eyes closed to the decorations 



156 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



of the altar, the robes of the priest, and the usual 
tawdry pictures of the Passion, one might easily 
fancy one's self in a densely packed Orthodox 
church in New England, to the congregation of 
which there had been given a degree of musical 
tact such as it is not usual to find here. It 
would be an extravagance to say that the music, 
as music, was especially fine, or that the rough 
people by whom it was rendered were artistic, but 
a thorough union of heart and soul and tolerably 
well-attuned voice made the evening anthems 
more than ordinarily impressive. 

I took advantage of the sunset hour to climb 
the weary way that leads to Landshut, along the 
base of whose rough and time-worn masonry a 
little path leads to its old entrance portal. With- 
in all is a blank undefined open space enclosed 
by thick walls, more or less battered down, and 
flanked at one corner by the enormous round 
tower, whose summit commanded every approach 
to the stronghold. Far below, in the narrow 
valley of the Diefbach, the quaint old roof-tops of 
Bernkastel huddled themselves together in their 
tortuous rows and clusters, close under the steep 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



157 



rising hillsides on either hand, — threading their 
way back into the gorge, until they string them- 
selves out into scattering picturesque old mills. 
There is little in the whole range of travel that 
so poorly compensates the tourist as the climb- 
ing to high points ; but the view from the ruin 
of Landshut, over the villages and hillsides and 
fields and gardens and orchards of the winding 
Mosel, gives, to the American, a panorama thickly- 
studded with suggestions such as he finds no- 
where at home, and such as he is too apt not 
to seek, and therefore not to see, in ordinary 
European travel. 

It is not the least of the charms of the- charm- 
ing Diefbach valley that it leads one, by its stead- 
ily rising and always winding course, past deep 
side valleys, under rough hills, along sweet-smell- 
ing hay- fields, and past groups of picturesque 
peasants seated at their midday meal under the 
shade of rich trees. Farther on, in a broken 
slate-hill country, traces of the greatest age are 
flanked by marks of the freshest cultivation, that 
stretches well up to the heights of the Hunsrtick, 
— a long outreaching spur of the Vosges, which 



i 5 8 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



fills the whole angle between the Mosel and the 
Rhine, and gives a view across the broad and 
sharply notched valley of the Mosel over the 
plain and peaks of the volcanic Eifel, toward 
Andernach and Remagen. 

Our road soon dropped from the extreme 
height, where arid plains and dismal villages pre- 
vailed, first along the brow of the hill, and then, 
little by little, by a zigzag easy grade, wound in 
and out, now among the trees of a narrow gorge, 
and now around the spur of a naked hill-point, 
with a view growing constantly less remote, and, 
if possible, more lovely as we rolled down and 
down over the smooth macadam through the 
sweetest of all valleys, Thai Veldenz, and out into 
the little village of Mnlheim, on the plain. 

Our landlord had told us that we might lunch 
comfortably at the Gasthaus, in Mulheim, and we 
did indeed lunch, not only comfortably, but ex- 
tremely well, in the tidy little up-stairs parlor of a 
common-looking village inn, half farm-house, and 
half beer-house. The parlor walls were hung 
with very tolerable prints, and a large pile of 
bound volumes of the " Gartenlaube " entertained 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



159 



us pleasantly during our hour's stay. It seems 
absurd, but for food and wine, practically consti- 
tuting a dinner, for stabling and food for two 
horses, and for luncheon and beer for our hearty 




THAL VELDEXZ. 



young driver, Peter (please pronounce Payter), 
the charge was exactly ninety-five cents. 

To one seeking a charming impression of the 
innermost quiet and rural simplicity and beauty 



i6o 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



of the hidden provinces of Germany, I commend 
the five minutes while horses are being put to, in 
the middle of the street at the side of the Mul- 
heim Gasthaus, with the face turned toward the 
Veldenz valley, — where the shimmering, warm 
air of a clear September noonday casts the faint- 
est suggestion of a veil over the rich enclosed 
plain, the hazy, dark, far recesses, and the dis- 
tant, blue, embracing hills,- which hold up to view 
the ruined remnant of the immemorial old Vel- 
denz castle. To give the needed touch of a pres- 
ent human interest, group in the near corner of 
the plain, just beyond the thatched shed-roof of 
an old farm-house, the queer pole-made wagon 
of the Mosel farmer, drawn by head-yoked cows, 
and being filled by a group of ruddy, cheery men 
and women, armed with clumsy scythes and 
wooden forks and rakes, — gathering in the rich 
aftermath, whose aroma fills the still air. 

At Mulheim we crossed the ferry, landing at 
the very foot of the world-famed Brauneberg, 
whose wine is the best and the dearest of all 
grown along the Mosel. We drove up the river 
as far as Kesten, hoping to meet a wine-taster to 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



161 



whom we had letters, and to glean horticultural 
information. Our visit failed of its immediate 
purpose, but a drive along the Mosel, especially 
when it leads through Kesten and Lieser and 
Cues, and ends at Bernkastel, can never lack 
full compensation. 




CHAPTER VIII. 



MOSELWEIN. 



IN the following day, by previous appoint- 
| ment, we paid a visit to our friends of 
Trier and Monaise, who had come for an 
inspection of their vineyards. It seemed almost 
just to envy the fortunate possessors of Monaise 
this crowning good fortune of an old family house 
at Lieser, — at least, one of whose most interest- 
ing collections of bric-a-brac and china has received 
no additions since a hundred years ago, and whose 
entirely novel character and simplicity have given 
us one of our pleasantest Mosel recollections. 

A chief purpose of this visit was to get an in- 
sight into some of the details of the Mosel wine 
industry. The vintage had not yet begun, and 
we were not even permitted to enter the vine- 




IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



I6 3 



yards, nor was, indeed, the proprietor himself. 
He could only conduct us along the foot of the 
hill, and explain the method of cultivation as 
we walked. Pending the ripening of the grape, 
the vineyards are, by a custom that is stronger 
than the right of ownership, " locked." Even the 
owner of a large tract must make application to 
the burgomaster of his village, and be accom- 
panied by a garde-champetre, if he wishes to ex- 
amine the condition of his own grapes. After 
all, the condition of his own grapes is not al- 
lowed to determine his time for beginning the 
vintage. 

This determination is made by the vote of the 
commune, of which, however large an owner he 
may be, he counts as but one. When the ma- 
jority decides that the grapes are ripe and that 
the vintage shall begin, then not only may it 
begin, but, practically, it must begin ; for, scrupu- 
lously honest though the people are concerning 
the fruit while guarded by the custom of locking- 
out, after the vineyards have once been thrown 
open, should an owner set up his opinion as of 
more value than that of his commune and delay 



164 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



his vintage, it is considered a venial offence to 
assist him with his harvest. 

The great inconvenience and disadvantage of 
all this is, that the poorer proprietors, who cannot 
hope to make the finest wine, and who care more 
for quantity than for quality, are not willing to 
wait until the grapes reach the important con- 
dition of dead ripeness before they begin to pick. 
The great growers of the best wines are obliged 
to protect themselves more or less against pilfer- 
ing during the few days they deem it wise to 
delay their harvest. 

As an industry, the growing of fine Mosel 
wines is hazardous, save to one who not only 
has the necessary knowledge and experience, but 
who has also sufficient capital to live indepen- 
dently of the returns from his vineyards. For 
example, the years 1847 to 1856, inclusive, were 
all bad years. 1857 was a good year, and there 
have been five good years since then ; but every 
year was again bad from 1869 to 1873. 1874 was 
a good year, but 1875 (our year), although it had 
been full of promise, had turned to a failure by 
the time of our visit. 



IN A A f OS EL ROW-BOAT. 1 65 



However, if one has the capital and the pa- 
tience, the good years compensate for all the loss. 
In the spring of 1875 my informant had exposed 
in the open market at Trier a very large product 
from his vineyards at Brauneberg, Lieser, Graach, 
and Zeltingen, wine of 1874. Professional buyers 
or " commissioners," representing all the principal 
wine-dealers of Germany, attended the sale, — all 
of them skilful wine-tasters. The wine was ex- 
posed for inspection for one week. The whole 
crop was sold at auction for an average of about* 
three dollars per gallon, — the best Brauneberger 
bringing one thousand five hundred thalers per 
cask of about nine hundred liters ; equal to four 
and one half dollars per gallon. 

In the bad years the expenses are quite as 
great as in the good ones, and the wine is sold — 
at the vineyards and without name — for a very 
trifling sum. It is bought chiefly by the " wine 
doctors," who by skilful chemical manipulation 
convert it into the high priced " Moselwein " of 
the restaurants of Europe and America, or into 
the always headachy and unreliable fizzing com- 
pound known as " Sparkling Moselle." 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Pure Brauneberger wine is sold in bad years 
as low as fifty-five thalers per cask, — equal to 
about sixteen cents per gallon. 

There is a great difference in the quality of the 
vines (or of their product) at different spots on 
the same hillside. On the Brauneberg, the best 
vineyards are worth about two dollars per vine, 
or $10,000 per acre; while the poorest — per- 
haps within a few hundred feet of the best — are 
worth not more than $ 1200 per acre. The 
Mosel wine soil is a deep mass of bits of slate, 
through which the roots penetrate to a great 
depth, and which are supposed to derive their 
chief merit from their power of absorbing and 
retaining heat. Animal manure, in considerable 
quantity, is very important, but the refuse of 
slate quarries, and of tunnel-work in the slate 
hills, is of great value, so much so that the 
whole cost of driving a large cellar into the hill- 
side at Lieser was fully repaid by the value of 
the material taken out for dressing the vine- 
yards. 

As one floats slowly down this river, and con- 
tinues one's journey along the Rhine, the preva- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 167 

lent theory that all Europe could not produce the 
wine that is drunk in America alone gives way 
to the question as to where in the world all the 
people come from to drink the wine these vine- 
yards produce, — and the question seems quite 
settled by the fact that our journey brings us in 
view of only a part of the vineyards of Germany, 
and of the further fact that France produces a 
vintage equal to ten times the amount of the 
German. 

One great merit of the Mosel vines is that they 
last in full bearing for from sixty to sixty-five 
years, while those along the Rhine run out in 
from twenty-five to thirty years. It was some- 
what interesting to learn that almost the only 
quality which gives its great value to the wine 
of the best years is their " bouquet." Considered 
chemically, or with reference to their wholesome- 
ness as a beverage, the wines of the bad years and 
of the good ones are much alike ; but the delicacy 
of flavor that gives value in the epicure market 
marks the wide difference between the two prod- 
ucts. Practically, we get but very little of the 
best Mosel wine in this country, and we can get 



1 68 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



it only at a very high cost. A gallon of wine that 
costs four dollars and a half in the cask at the 
vineyard accumulates, before it is ready for bot- 
tling and sale, a mass of charges for transporta- 
tion, handling, racking, leakage, evaporation, and 
interest, which fully doubles its cost. To this 
double cost the considerable profits of the whole- 
sale and retail dealers must be added, so that 
these very fancy wines can hardly be bought in 
Germany for less than two dollars and a half to 
three dollars per bottle ; certainly such wines can- 
not be sold by the single bottle in America for 
less than five dollars, and one can hardly hope to 
taste the really superior and more delicate Mosel 
wines at any of our restaurants. 

The traveller begins by ordering " Piesporter," 
" Zeltinger," " Bernkasteler Doctor," etc., but he 
soon learns, if he really gets the best, that he is 
paying an inordinate price for a delicacy that he 
has hardly been educated to appreciate, and he 
falls back, after a few days, to the universal bever- 
age of rich and poor along the whole line of the 
river, — namely, the young wine of the country, 
which is drawn from the wood and bottled only 



« 

IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 1 69 



as it is brought to the table. This is everywhere 
an excellent, satisfactory, and wholesome beverage, 
and its price is always very low, — so low that the 
drinking of beer among the well-to-do classes is 
very limited. 




AMONG THE VINES. 



CHAPTER IX. 



FROM BERNKASTEL TO BAD BERTRICH. 



^g^lT was with real regret that we left Bern- 
^tQ^ kastel, with all its picturesqueness and 
with its not unimportant advantage of 
good Herr Gassen's hotel. As it was already 
nearly night, we hired a man to pull us to Trar- 
bach, — only an hour distant by the footpath, 
but fourteen miles by the winding course of the 
river, — a beautiful course of a beautiful river, 
and well worthy, like all of our preceding journey, 
of careful examination, and full of picturesque 
and legendary interest. 

Trarbach was burned in 1856 by a crazy in- 
cendiary. He first ran over the hill to Bern- 
kastel and fired that, to its great lasting injury ; 
and when the Trarbach people had gone en masse 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



171 



to the assistance of their neighbors, he literally 
destroyed this whole town, which, from all de- 
scription, and from such illustrations as remain, 




TRARBACH (BEFORE THE FIRE). 

was doubtless even more picturesque in its archi- 
tecture than Bernkastel itself. It is now a dull 
new town, — the richest on the river, with the 
riches that have come from the manufacture of 
" wine that is no wine," — notably of Sparkling 
Moselle. 



172 TWO HUNDRED MILES 



We stopped at a snug gasthaus across the ferry 




our windows over the high opposite hills, crowned 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



173 



with the extremely picturesque ruin of Grafinburg, 
— the old castle of the Countess Lauretta von 
Salm, — making a combination of moonlit sky, 
and sparkling river, and ruin-capped mountain 
in black silhouette, that we nowhere else saw 
equalled. 

The next morning we set out alone, and had 
barely rounded the bend of the river, when we 
came in sight of the most picturesque of all the 
smaller of the Mosel villages, Litzig, which begins 
with a little tumble-down thatched cottage nearly 
overgrown with vines, the shadow of whose sunlit 
leaves blackened the open casement, where stood 
pots of bright flowers. Before we had passed the 
hamlet, we had marked four other houses, of more 
pretension, but of no less remarkable mediaeval, 
overgrown beauty. 

Five miles out, tempted by the smooth grass 
of a shaded shore, we were glad to abandon our 
struggle against a strong head-wind, and to sit 
among the autumn crocuses under the trees eat- 
ing our lunch, and drinking our last bottle of good 
Saar wine from Trier, until the breeze abated. 

It was altogether a lazy day, and the protracted 



174 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



idleness of our stay at Bernkastel made rowing a 
labor ; so, at Punderich, less than half our way to 
Alf, we contracted with an oarsman to pull us the 
remaining eight miles. Punderich is opposite the 




ENKIRCH. 

high hill on which stands the ruined convent of 
Marienburg, crowning a sharp high rock which 
is washed at its other side also by the returning 
course of the river. Our oarsman counted on a 
twenty minutes' walk over the hill for his return 
from Alf to Punderich. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



175 



Here, as everywhere, villages lay to the right 
and left : women were washing and bleaching 
linen cloth and manifold garments, in almost un- 
interrupted succession, and our whole way was 




MARIENBURG. 



crowded with the evidences of a thick and pros- 
perous population. Zell, which we passed, is 
rather a fine little town, with several remarkable 
mediaeval houses of considerable pretension ; in- 



176 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



deed, the best house that we had thus far seen 
stands on the bank opposite the town. It is 
large and high, with a middle gable facing the 
river, and with a huge slate-covered oriel window, 
whose pointed roof reaches above the eaves of 




ZELL. 



the house. The timbering of the sides is most 
artistically arranged. It lacks the fine carving 
of some of the Bernkastel houses, but it is far 
grander, and is indeed one of tlie best existing 
examples of its style, equal to many of the finer 
specimens which have within a few years past 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



177 



given way to the march of u improvement " in 
the towns along the Rhine. 

We reached Alf an hour before sunset, and 
there met Herr Gassen's carriage, which, with 
Peter for coachman, we had been glad to engage 
for our trip through the Eifel. We drove at once 
up a steep and rugged mountain road, past the 
well-placed ruin of Burg Arras to the magnificent 
height of Marienburg, where we had the Mosel 
almost at our feet on either hand, its grand bend 
far in front of us, hidden in the valley, whose 
light-hanging blue haze was thickened with the 
smoke of Zell and its adjacent villages, and of* 
the brushwood burning on the mountain-side; 
From our position we could see even the earths- 
works made by Napoleon above Bernkastel, and 
to the north the far-away volcanic peaks of the 
Eifel ; glimpses of the river, as our view struck 
its lengthened course on one side or the other, 
set off the dark green of the vineyards and the 
woods with the bright glintings of its rippled 
waters. 

Alf is a busy and untidy town, whose commer- 
cial inn is none too good. Its chief interest to 



i;8 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



the traveller, in spite of the wonderfully pictu- 
resque church of Bullay on the opposite shore, 




BAD BERTRICH 



comes of the fact that it lies at the mouth of the 
beautiful valley that leads to Bad Bertrich — the 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



179 



pleasantest entrance to the Eifel, and the shortest 
approach to its more remarkable volcanic fea- 
tures. 

If the Wissahickon, at Philadelphia, were bor- 
dered by a narrow flat valley, its potato-fields set 
here and there with traps to catch wild boars, 
and its road brought to a perfect grade and hard- 
ened by the best macadamizing, it would give a 
fair idea of the hour's drive back through the 
wild hills and along the noisy water-course to 
the nestling little village of Bertrich, whose ther- 
mal waters attract enough semi-fashionable Con- 
tinental invalids of a mild type, during the leisure 
summer months, to give the village an agreeable 
society. It is an extremely pretty little watering- 
place, with tolerable hotels, and with a scale of 
prices that is very much in its favor. Near by 
are charming walks leading to the usual cas- 
cades, to rustic bridges, to collections of Roman 
antiquities, and especially to a quite remarkable 
basaltic formation, called the "Cheese cellar," — 
a hole in the hillside walled with basalt blocks 
piled up like Stilton cheeses. Within a short 
walk, too, is the Falkenlei, whose high precipi- 



180 TWO HUNDRED MILES IN A ROW-BOAT. 



tous side shows its geological structure, — at the 
bottom solid masses of lava, and above these slag 
and scoriae filled with clefts and caves. From its 
summit one looks over the wide volcanic plain, 
and across the sunken craters of the Eifel, to the 
higher peaks far to the north. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE EIFEL. 

REAKFASTING at Bertrich, we left be- 
fore noon and drove the whole day long 
and until eight at night, save for a halt 
to dine at Manderscheid, through a country of 
which no adequate impression can be given by 
a short description, and which, as a whole, may 
be regarded as a slightly undulating, high-lying 
plain, almost without visible villages, and with an 
agriculture that indicates only a fair return for 
the most persistent labor, the most rigid econ- 
omy, and the most careful manuring. This plain 
is crossed in all directions by superb roads, of 
which we at home have hardly an example ; but 
it is mostly treeless and to the casual eye dismal. 
At the same time it is a dismal land, filled with 
objects of great interest, and occasionally of 
great picturesqueness. 




182 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



At one point our road led along the edge of 
a deep extinct crater, probably more than a mile 
in diameter, and with sides so steep that the 
road entering it takes a very oblique direction. 
Deep in the bed of this crater lie a couple of 
villages, and its sloping sides are laid off in paral- 
lelograms and rhomboids of geometric precision, 
and all brought to a high state of cultivation. 
Again we passed near the edge of another crater, 
the Pulver Maar, whose sides are clothed with 
a grand forest of beeches, reaching down to its 
circular lake, which is of the clearest deep water. 
There are nearly a hundred acres of water, three 
hundred and fifty feet deep. The banks are of 
volcanic sand, tufa, and scoriae, and at one side 
rises a prominent volcanic peak. 

From the Pulver Maar we pushed on, through 
Gillenfeld, where a cattle-market was going on, 
— - very poor cattle, — toward the village of Man- 
derscheid. Just before reaching the valley of 
the Lieser we turned into the wood, and pres- 
ently came out on the point of a hill known as 
the Belvedere, — and a belvedere it is, indeed. 
The distance is bounded by the low mountains 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



183 



which enclose the valley of the Kyll, — chief 
among them the grand round-backed Mauseberg. 
Between them and us the country is broken, 
well wooded, well cultivated, and attractive. Al- 
most at our very feet, far down in the deep valley 
of the Lieser, on two ridges of rock, which hook 
together like two fingers, leaving room only for 
the deep brook to pass between their interlocked 
points, stand the gray old twin castles of the 
Counts of Manderscheid. Viewed from the ad- 
joining village, or from the bed of the stream, 
or from their own courtyards, these castles are 
picturesque and in every way attractive ; but as 
seen from the height of the Belvedere, they have 
the unequalled charm that belongs to gray old 
traditional ruins breaking suddenly upon the 
sight, amid all the rich surroundings of deeply 
wooded hillsides which stretch slowly away to 
a picturesque distant horizon. One rarely sees a 
ruin which excites at once such curiosity as to 
its origin, and such admiration for its beauty, as 
do these castles perched on their steep cliffs, far 
down in a deep valley. Was it enmity or friend- 
ship, war or peace, love or envy, mutual thieving 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



or robber rivalry between the lords of these two 
castles ? If love, what venturesome passages 
across the dividing chasm! If war, what a 
weary way around the attacking party must have 
gone, — exposed to the slaughtering shafts of the 
enemy. Although the towers of these two cas- 
tles can hardly be two hundred yards apart, the 
steepest and most dangerous scaling is needed 
to pass from one to the other, and, even now, 
the nearest footpath connecting them runs for 
a weary mile or more along the hillside. The 
castles of Manderscheid, coming as they did all 
unforetold, and without a word of information or 
introduction, were by far the most interesting 
feature of our first trip in the Eifel. 

We dined at Manderscheid, we slept at Daun, 
and we drove the next day to great Gerolstein 
and back. The comical absurdity of " La Grande 
Duchesse de Gerolstein" can never be fully ap- 
preciated until one drives through the sloping, 
sloppy, foul-smelling Eifel village that gives it 
its name. The Kyllthal, at the side of which 
Gerolstein lies, is, for miles, a beautifully pictu- 
resque valley, now traversed by a railroad, but 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



185 



unspoiled, nevertheless. Beautiful nooks and 
hills and bends and many ruins give it charm 
at every step, and its hillside brooks are filled 
with trout, as are its woods with game. 

Our own pleasant recollection is connected 
with the very good restaurant at the railway 
station, where we had capital food and service, 
and where we were accosted, in English, by Dr. 
Van der Velde, — of the district, — who gave us 
information, drove with us a part of our way 
back, and then, having to take a patient en route, 
went by the short footpath to the grand old 
castle of Kasselburg, near Pelm, where he met 
us and showed us through the ruin, — a ruin 
now belonging to the Prussian government, and 
being only sufficiently restored for its preserva- 
tion. It is better worth a halt and a visit by 
those travelling over the rail from Trier to Co- 
logne than ruins generally are. Ruined castles 
are often finest as seen from below, but Kasselburg 
can be by no means appreciated except on close 
examination ; and its crowning charm is the view 
from its tower-top, over the beautiful valley of the 
Kyll, and to the right and left from beyond the 
Rhine to the distant heights of Luxemburg. 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Our doctor is the official medical attendant of 
all the villages within a radius of about three 
miles from his house. His district includes forty- 
five villages, and so great is their healthfulness 
that he finds himself easily able to perform his 
duties. The land is poor in almost every direc- 
tion, but it is cultivated with great care, and 
there is a uniform thrift among the agricultural 
population so great that in all these forty-five 
villages but six families have to receive medical 
attendance at the cost of their commune. 

We returned the same day to Daun, and at twi- 
light visited the several crater lakes lying near it, 
bringing up long after dark in the little village of 
Mehren. Baedeker had indicated the badness of 
the hotel in the next village, and had not named 
Mehren at all. Our landlord at Bertrich had told 
us that we might stop at the house of one Knoth, 
in Mehren, but our Daun landlord had shrugged 
his aged shoulders at the suggestion. We were, 
as all travellers by side roads naturally are, fearing 
that each night would bring us into impossible 
lodgings, and every indication pointed to Mehren 
as our fated foul resting-place. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



187 



Frau Knoth received us at the threshold of her 
cleanly hall, and patiently submitted her rooms, her 
beds, her dining-room, and her maid-servant to our 
inspection. Certainly we had nowhere in Germany 
seen a little inn more tidy or more tasteful, nowhere 
a landlady more friendly, and nowhere a hand- 
maiden more acceptable than Fraiilein Knoth, — 
fresh from the embroidery and French and piano- 
forte of a boarding-school in Hanover. Nowhere 
else in Germany did the question arise in our 
minds whether it would do to give our attendant 
a fee, — of course the doubt was groundless here. 
We had dined at Gerolstein, and so ordered only 
a simple supper. One item of its simplicity was 
an excellent omelette soufflee, and another a bot- 
tle of French champagne with Appolinaris water. 
With our morning coffee we had capital rolls 
(every village has a skilled baker), unsalted but- 
ter, and a toothsome jelly. 

Mehren is a very uninteresting village, and the 
wonders of the crater lakes behind it are hardly 
enough to lead to a second visit ; but I some- 
times think that our pleasant experience of a 
night at its hotel would almost induce me to re- 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



turn. Yet the Knoths were modest, and evi- 
dently had no idea that every other collection of 
peasants' houses in all the Eifel, or along the 
river, had not as comfortable accommodations for 
travellers, — and perhaps they have. Knoth is a 
farmer, and his hotel, with its wine and beer room, 
is only an accessory to his agricultural operations ; 
but he and his family evidently get much pleasure 
and improvement out of their occasional guests ; 
we surely got pleasure out of them. Our whole 
entertainment here cost two dollars and a half. 

Every village through which we passed gave its 
prominent indication of the completeness and mi- 
nuteness of the Prussian civil and military system. 
Each one had a plainly painted black and white 
sign conspicuously posted, similar to this : 

"D. Mehren: 
3d Comp., 2 Bat. (Trier II.): 
8 Rheinischer Landw. 
Regt. No. 70. 
Kr. Daun. R. B. Trier."* 



* " Village of Mehren : 
3d Company, 2d Battalion, Second Regiment of Trier : 
8th Rhine Landwehr 

Regiment No. 70. 
District of Daun. Department of Trier." 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 1 89 

Thus every man in Prussia has constantly be- 
fore him in his village information as to the 
regular company, battalion, and regiment, the di- 
vision of reserve, or Landwehr, and the civil de- 
partment to which he belongs, and every subse- 
quent step into the whole organization seems to 
be equally simple and complete. It is largely 
this that gives the ability for the sudden massing 
of the entire force of the country whenever occa- 
sion demands. 

The Eifel is naturally a very poor country, and 
it suffers very much from drought. Irrigation is 
available for only a small part of the land. For- 
merly poverty was extreme, though without much, 
absolute suffering,' — simply the sort of poverty 
that leads to the most hardening and harrowing 
economy of living, and to a degree of pence- 
counting of which we are, happily, ignorant.. 
However, since the recent activity in the iron: 
districts of Westphalia, the young men of the 
Eifel have gone largely to work at its mines and 
furnaces, have earned good wages, and have liter- 
ally put the whole region on a comfortable foot- 
ing, while the Westphalian demand for food has 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



190 



led to such an increase in the value of the soil 




OLD CHURCH AT BERTRJCH. 

products, — and especially of meat, — as has 
caused a real advance in civilization. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 191 

We drove pleasantly back by a different road 
to Bertrich, where we bathed and breakfasted, 
and where we chatted with a Cologne lawyer and 
a Brazilian pastor. Toward evening we drove back 
down the same beautiful valley to Alf, ending a 
most memorable week full of the strangest and 
most charming experiences, — a week which now, 
at a distance, seems to include the events of a 
long month. 

Peter and his team were discharged. They 
had been in our exclusive service from Monday 
morning until Saturday night at a total cost, 
everything included, of $22. 

We stood long at our window, watching the 
play of the moonlight over the hills and about 
the tower of the Bullay church, and then went 
quietly to bed, — all innocent of the experience 
which the next day had in store for us. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE HEART OF THE MOSEL VALLEY. 

""HERE are days in the past lives of all 
of us which refuse to rest in the chrono- 
logical niche to which they belong. They 
insist upon leaping over the intervening months 
and years, and keeping themselves always present 
in our memories. Such a day is that Sunday in 
September when we loaded our luggage and our 
little row-boat luxuries and drinking-glass and 
field-glass on board the " Nancy/' and set sail 
from Alf, as the church-bells of the river-side 
villages were answering each others calls to the 
morning mass. 

It was a rare day. The sun was bright with- 
out fierceness ; the baffling and changing breeze 
accommodated itself to all the windings of our 
course, and gave us always the impulse of its 




IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



197 



gentle pressure ; the air was so clear that distant 
objects were well defined, yet so soft that near 
ones were not too glaring ; the mellow tones of 
the old timber-and-stucco houses were warm and 
tender, and the full-leaved hillsides were as fresh 
as in June. 

We rowed, and floated, and idled away the 
livelong day amid the ever-changing scenes and 
constantly varied interest of the most beautiful 
part of the whole Mosel. Here and there a rapid 
run, concentrated between projecting jetties, would 
give us a half-mile or so of swift flight. Then 
would come a long stretch of straight or winding 
lake-like water, down which we paddled, — resting 
often to fill our souls with the ineffable beauty 
and serenity of the slowly varied scene. 

All Mosel land seemed to be enjoying its holi- 
day, — strolling, fishing, rowing, bathing, singing, 
and idling ; the whole happy people were given over 
to the Arcadian life which, on September Sundays 
at least, they seem to enjoy to the fullest extent. 

The map given herewith covers the length of 
this Sunday's sail, — from Alf to Kochem, — the 
whole course lying between high and beautiful 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



hills, which almost always crowded the river 
closely on either hand, and being thickly studded 
with villages, ruins, and never-ending vineyards. 
As we pulled away from Alf we had behind us 




NEEF. 



the steep, high cliff, crowned with the Marien- 
burg, and, cut sharp against its green side, the 
point of the odd old Bullay spire. At our left 
we passed the old church of Aldegund, perched 
on a high rock above the town, which it crowns 
with the beauty of the quaintest old-time village 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



20 1 



church architecture. Then came Neef and 
Bremm, and here we rounded a sharp turn in 
the river, running under the very walls of a most 




EDIGER (AFTER ERNEST GEORGE). 



romantic ruin, the old Kloster Stuben, built low 
down near the very shore amid great cluster- 
ing trees where its storied nightingales fill the 
starlit air with melody. What now stands was 
clearly the church of St. Gisela's Augustine nuns, 
dating back to the twelfth century. Passing by 



202 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Eller, we landed in front of the hotel of the most 
picturesque old town of Ediger — a town which, 
as seen from the river, has few equals along the 
whole Mosel. Here we halted for an hour, and 
dined and dozed dreamily in the shaded arbor of 
the hotel, overlooking the river. 

During the afternoon we landed on this shore 
and on that, and, as we look back, we seem 
to have dawdled away so much of our time that 
it is hard to understand how we made even the 
slow progress that we did. The villages are 
packed more closely together here than along 
our earlier route, sometimes stretching along the 
bank, and again lying a little way back, behind 
orchards and woods, which shut them from 
our view, — manifesting themselves only in the 
floating smoke and the cries and laughter of 
children. Presently we swung around in front 
of the village of Briedern, and sighted the tower 
of Beilstein Castle, perched, like Landshut, high 
above the vineyards, which, as we rowed on, 
showed themselves gradually lower and lower 
down until Beilstein village itself came into view. 
As Bernkastel best shows the interior crooked- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



205 



ness, quaintness, and architectural beauty of the 
mediaeval Mosel town, so Beilstein presents to 
the river the most charming and interesting ex- 
ternal view. Traces are still left of the old castle 
walls, stretching down the vine-clad hill, and em- 
bracing the little town in its arms. Several of 
the houses — evidently centuries old — have in- 
cluded in their construction bastions and tow- 
ers and battlements of the old defensive work. 
Never did castle more completely overlook, pro- 
tect, and enclose the village where its retainers 
were gathered; and nowhere on the Mosel, or 
on the Rhine, is the feudal relation between the 
lord and his people more clearly illustrated by 
the still standing traces of their homes ; and 
nowhere, surely, did lord and retainer live in a 
more beautiful spot, or among more charming 
surroundings. There may be in Beilstein some 
minor houses of this century, but not enough to 
mar in any w r ay the effect of purest antiquity. 
The gray castle, the richly grown hillside, the 
" calmly gliding waters," the warm-tinted, tum- 
ble-down, fish-scale-roof houses, the sturdy wall 
by which these are buttressed against the hill- 



206 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



side, and the high-perched, quaint old church, 
— all combine to make Beilstein to the last de- 
gree interesting. Even its people, as we see 
them from the river, in no wise detract from its 
interest, and the noisy game of bowls that was 
being played on one of the terraces might well 
have descended from the games of the feudal 
days. Beilstein Castle is mentioned in the twelfth 
century. It came in the fourteenth into the pos- 
session of the Archbishop of Trier, and was after- 
ward a chief point in the feudal warfare between 
his successor and the Pfalzgrave of the Rhine. It 
was given by the successful archbishop to Kuno 
von Wiinneberg, from whom it passed to the pow- 
erful Mosel family of Metternich. 

The rest of our day's row had, at every turn, 
a constant and constantly varied interest and 
beauty, until it brought us at last in front of 
the fine outlying country-houses above Kochem. 
Swinging around a high bluff, we came suddenly 
in view of the castle and the town, and pulled 
slowly down past its long, picturesque, river-side 
street to the landing-place in front of the "Hotel 
Union/' where we had bespoken accommoda- 
tions. 



CHAPTER XII. 



KOCHEM AND MOSELKERN. 

OCHEM is quite a large town. It is an 
important station of the Trier steamers, 
and the terminus of a little steamboat 
line from Koblenz. It is a busy little place, with 
a good back country, and, as the head of navi- 
gation during low stages of the river, it has a 
surplus of traffic. Its shore is well lined with 
flat-boats, and heavy drays are not unknown 
to its principal thoroughfare. It has a fine ca- 
sino, and several promising-looking hotels. The 
Union (Pauly's) is a really comfortable, modern 
hotel, — as distinct from the Gasthaus, — domi- 
ciled within heavy stone walls of mediaeval build. 
It opens upon a broad, vine-shaded terrace, set 
with wine-tables, and commanding one of the 




210 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



prettiest views of the river. It was like step- 
ping out of a former century and awakening sud- 
denly to modern life, to be shown into our large 
four-windowed corner room, with an actual nine- 




HOUSES ON THE QUAY AT KOCHEM. 



teenth-century carpet on the floor. It would be 
an affectation to say that we did not fully accept 
and enjoy the modern comforts with which we 
were surrounded ; but they did not at all spoil us 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



211 



for an appreciation of the quaint delights of the 
Gasthaus snugness and simplicity of our farther 
travel. 

Once away from the river-front, every street 
and by-way of Kochem is old and curious, — less 
so than those of Trier, but it is still an extremely 
interesting and picturesque old town, with a 
crowning charm that is hardly equalled in its way' 
in the world. The old castle of Friedburg — for- 
merly the home of the Landgrave Heinrich von 
Laach, who lived here in William the Conquerors 
time — caps a sharp high hill at the end of the 
town. Difficult of access by vehicles from the 
rear, and on its river-front approached only by a 
zigzag walk hewn out of the rock by Archbishop 
Baldwin, — a walk overlooked by protecting bas- 
tions, — its position must have been wellnigh 
impregnable. It played an important part in the 
mediaeval warfare between the electors of Trier 
and their robber enemies toward the Rhine, dur- 
ing the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centu- 
ries. It was a frequent residence of the electors, 
and they did much to beautify the underlying town. 
During the Thirty Years' War it was occupied by 



212 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



the archbishops, by the emperors, by the Spanish, 
by the Swedes, and by the French. In 1689 it 
was taken by the French, at the fourth storming, 
with a loss of sixteen hundred men, and both cas- 
tle and town were nearly destroyed. Then for 
almost two hundred years the hill-top was cov- 
ered with a mass of gray and time-worn ruin. 

Very recently it was bought by a wealthy gen- 
tleman of Berlin, a Privy Councillor of the gov- 
ernment, who — under the advice of the architect 
of the Cologne Cathedral — is restoring it to what 
is believed to have been its original character, but 
with a degree of elegance and luxury that in- 
cludes some refinements which must have been 
unknown to its earlier occupants. Its towers and 
turrets are covered with pointed round roofs, and 
bristle with flagstaffs. The windows are filled 
with beautiful glass-work, and the overhanging 
oriels and bay-windows and doors are of the 
finest solid woods, richly and beautifully carved. 
The great Rittersaal (Knight's hall), restored 
with even more than its mediaeval magnificence, 
is destined for a museum of armor and of all man- 
ner of middle-age relics. Never did courtier offer 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT, 



213 



to his guest a more magnificent house, more beau- 
tifully placed, or richer in every detail, than that 
to which the owner of Friedburg will welcome his 
Imperial guest. The millions that the work has 
cost, and the years that the improvements have 
occupied, and must still occupy, could hardly 
anywhere else have produced a more charming 
and luxurious result ; and over it all, despite its 
modern finish, there must always hang the veil 
of real legend-crowded and historic romance. 

An important one of my motives for visiting 
Kochem was the wish to examine the great en- 
gineering work connected with the tunnel of the 
new Prussian railway, — a railway that is to en- 
able Germany to mass half a million men at Metz 
within a week after the breaking out of the next 
French war. This work will sadly mar the 
beauty of the lower Mosel ; but, happily, the line 
passes much of the way by short cuts under 
ground, and it must always leave the long and 
beautiful bends of the river untouched and un- 
spoiled. Indeed, by concentrating the traffic of 
the country at those points where it appears 
above ground at the river-banks, it will probably 



214 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



check all tendency of modern enterprise to ruin 
the more hidden villages, and will leave Beilstein, 
Zell, Bernkastel, and a hundred hamlets forever 
dead and delightful. 

The Kochem tunnel is much inferior in length 
to those of the Alps, being less than three miles 
long (4,235 meters). It comes out near Eller, 
where much progress had already been made at 
the time of our visit, and about half a mile was 
finished at Kochem. The main driving is being 
done with the Swiss drill, which, although effec- 
tive, seemed to me less so than are our own per- 
cussion drills, while requiring a far larger number 
of men for their management. The upper drifts 
are driven with the use of the little Sachs (per- 
cussion) drill, which seems light and relatively 
inefficient. The rock is generally a hard lami- 
nated slate, lying at an awkward angle, and the 
material removed is valuable only for filling. Ac- 
cording to our custom, we should consider the 
rock itself a sufficiently secure vaulting, but this 
does not accord with the ideas of German engi- 
neers, and the whole tunnel, for a double-track 
road, is to be walled and vaulted with costly hard 
stone brought all the way from Luxemburg. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



215 



One might spend a month profitably and with 
unusual comfort under Herr Pauly's pleasant 
roof, and among the hills and villages and ruins 
of the country about, including the old home of 




KLOTTEN. 



the Metternichs, Schloss Winneburg, which lies 
in sight, back in the Enderbach valley. But too 
much of interest invited us down the river, and 



2l6 TWO HUNDRED MILES 



we left on Tuesday noon, marking Kochem as 
one of the many visited points to which one 
must again return. 




TOLL-HOUSE AT KARDEN. 



It was a most pleasant afternoon that we spent 
along the ten miles of river that floated us past 
the high perched ruin of Klotten Castle, Brie- 



I 

IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 21? 



dern, Treis, and the marvellous village of Kar- 
den, and past Miiden to the shore of quaint old 
Moselkern. 

We had heard of old of the charms of Deiss's 
Gasthaus at Moselkern. Unfortunately, others 
than we had heard of its good cheer, and the 
best that we could do was to take quarters 




KARDEN. 



at an outlying house below the village, going 
for our meals to the little inn, which we found 
crowded with travelling guests, and noisy with 
the clattering discussions of the railway engineers 
who were quartered there. 

Our hostess, a daughter of Deiss, whose hus- 
band is a well-to-do peasant, has a really comfort- 



218 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



able old double house near the bank of the river 
at the lower end of the village. It is much better 
than the ordinary village house, and is furnished 
with more comfort ; indeed, the parlor into which 
we were shown, although its furniture is all very 




A GATEWAY, KARDEN. 



old, and although its thick walls give deep win- 
dow-seats, had very much the air that one may 
see in the "best room" of a rich farmer, — in 
Eastern Pennsylvania, for example. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 2\g 

Our bedroom was in an extension of the house, 
approached by a very steep outer staircase and an 
open gallery. It was perfectly clean, and was 
furnished comfortably, though in the simplest 
way ; for washbowls we had long oval pudding- 
dishes. Our window opened upon a little fruit 




KARDEN. 

garden, and it was pleasant to hear the pattering 
of the light rain upon the leaves. We awakened 
early, and, on inspecting our quarters by daylight, 
were horrified to find that we had had neighbors 
of the creeping order, such as it had been our 
good fortune thus far to escape. In the gray 
dawn, one after another of these nocturnal visit- 



220 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



ors was to be seen creeping here and there over 
the beds and the floor. A little later, after our 
anxiety had grown almost insupportable, the wax- 
ing day showed our friends to have a somewhat 
too attenuated form for the Cimex lectularius of 
our boarding-school memories, and a closer in- 
spection quite acquitted them of the charge. 
They were simply a crowd of harmless little gar- 
den beetles which had taken refuge from the rain, 
and had amused their waking hours with an 
inspection of the persons and property of their 
American visitors. They were entirely innocent 
of any design upon our bodies, but they had suc- 
ceeded in inflicting quite as much torture upon 
our minds as though they had really been what 
we feared. The rain of this night was the first 
we had had since Paris, and the prospect of our 
next days tour through the eastern Eifel was 
gloomy enough. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE EASTERN EIFEL. 

UR chief reason for selecting Moselkern 
for a halting-place was, that it lies at the 
mouth of the noisy, winding, picturesque 
Eltzbach, — a little stream that comes tumbling 
down from the Eifel among crags and cliffs, 
which are crowded with the monuments, traditions, 
legends, and associations of the richest mediaeval 
time ; and up the Eltzbach valley, only three 
miles away, stands the grand old Schloss Eltz, — 
the chief aim of our pilgrimage. 

We were to have gone up the valley of the 
Eltzbach in a hay-wagon, cushioned with straw 
and drawn by cows over the rough road. We 
were compelled to give this up, and to engage 
the only covered vehicle in the village, with a 
tandem team to drag us up the long road lead- 




222 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



ing to the top of the hills, and on to Munster- 
maifeld. 

This little town had interested us from Ernest 
George's beautiful etching of one of its old farm- 
houses, with a covered gateway attached. It had 
also excited our curiosity from his statement that 
it was modernized to a painful degree, and that 
its outlying fields were cultivated with an English 
steam-plough. We found no evidence whatever, 
of " improved agriculture " and we were told that 
the steam-plough, and indeed any other modern 
plough, is as much unknown at Munstermaifeld 
as in the most hidden village in the Mosel valley. 
All of our experiences at the hotel, at the church 
with its notable tower, and about the streets — 
the rain had ceased and the day had cleared 
finely — were of the pleasantest, but we hastened 
to enter our lumbering, mediaeval old calash, a 
vehicle which would not live a year on our roads, 
but which seems amply reliable for the excellent 
ones of the Eifel. We trundled on behind the 
slow old plough-horses, and listened to the constant 
talk and explanation of our peasant coachman. 

We went first to May en, a busy and active 




TOWER OF CHURCH AT MUNSTERMAIFELD. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



225 



market-town, at one end of whose public square 
stands the castle of Genoveva's Burg, — near the 
church behind whose altar her misguided hus- 
band found her, according to the Mayen version 
of the legend, spinning, and where she still sits 




SCHLOSS BURRESHEIM, NEAR MAYEN. 



to this day, an unseen spirit weaving the gossa-^ 
mer web of the other world. 

The legend of Genoveva, the most noted and 
most dramatic of the Mosel legends, is located 
by usual tradition at Pfalzel, below Trier, where- 



226 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



Siegfried's castle is said to have stood, and near 
to the woods into which she was driven by her 
cruel fate. Of course the Pfalzel version has no 
adherents at Mayen. 

Our course in this direction had for its purpose 
a visit to Schloss Burresheim which, after Schloss 
Eltz, is the best preserved of the very old feudal 
castles, — dating back to the twelfth century, 
and still kept up in its ancient condition. It 
has been modernized, century after century, but 
without destructive changes, and contains in its 
architecture, its furniture, and its decorations, a 
very complete record of the life and habits of the 
old German nobles. Unfortunately, its owner was 
absent, and we could only peer through the win- 
dows from the moss-grown inner courtyard into 
the great Rittersaal which opens upon it. The 
heavy furniture was stowed away and covered 
against dust ; but in a great fireplace there 
stood a very vision of brass andirons, — which 
should mark Schloss Burresheim as the future 
hunting-ground of some lucky bric-a-brac vul- 
ture seeking the full magnificence of mediaeval 
brass. The castle has stood for seven hundred 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT, 



227 



years, and shows no sign of decay or spoliation ; 
but to secure these andirons would be a worthy 
ambition for any devotee of the new-born art, and 
I advise all interested to concoct plans for their 
future acquisition, — plans to be handed down 
as an heirloom of duty to descendants until the 
day when the final crumbling of the Biirresheim 
fortune shall open the way to success. The 
castle is not especially large, but its architecture 
and its situation are extremely beautiful, and 
whether approaching it from the valley of the 
Nette, or leaving it by the road which winds up 
the side of the mountain to a point high above it, 
it is most interesting and charming, — entirely 
picturesque in itself and in its situation. 

It was after dark when we arrived at the edge 
of the broad wood which surrounds the Laacher- 
see. We were quite outside of the range of 
even agricultural travel. The country is mainly 
wooded and much broken, and the roads, washed 
by rain and worn by travel, were as bad as 
our own little-used country by-ways. This con- 
dition, added to the dense darkness of the forest, 
whose great trees completely covered us, made 



228 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



our remaining two or three miles particularly un- 
pleasant. To have been overturned in our pon- 
derous ark would have been by no means agree- 
able or safe. However, the horses knew the 
road of old, and brought us safely through to 
a corner of the wall of the old Abbey of Laach. 
Following this to its next turn, we came sud- 
denly in full view of the brilliantly lighted hotel 
(" Maria-Laach "), beyond which lay the beauti- 
ful Laachersee reflecting the stars and the dark 
shore in its unruffled stillness. 

This is much the largest of the crater lakes of 
the Eifel, and is a beautiful sheet of water, sur- 
rounded by wooded hills and overlooked by the 
old Benedictine Abbey of Laach, which adjoins 
the hotel. The abbey has now been secularized, 
and it and its beautiful church belong to the 
Prussian government. It was founded in 1093 by 
the Count Palatine Henry II., whose curious 
effigy — he bears a model of the building in his 
hand — lies beneath a canopy in the church. 
The cloisters at the entrance of the church are 
very fine, and, indeed, the whole ecclesiastical 
establishment is full of interest. This abbey, 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



229 



the charming lake, and the very interesting sub- 
terranean tuff-stone quarries of Niedermendig, 
near by, combine to give interest to a visit 

I Hi L a a c h 

• ^ hotel, 

g ., '^dm^.JM where 

I one mny 

R be com- 
fe 

J fort able 

ft 

and at 
peace, 
and 
where 
an intel- 
1 i g e n t 

and modest-minded traveller 
is quite sure to meet with the 
more interesting class of 
tourists, — those who seek 
the quiet enjoyment of points 
lying off the main line of fashionable travel 

To an American who has travelled enough in 
Germany to make no account of the more marked 




230 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



local peculiarities, such as smoking at table and 
the constant presence of tall hock-bottles on all 
occasions, this hotel has a familiar air. It is 
large, plain, cheaply built, placed to command 
the finest view, and surrounded with sufficiently 
pleasant, but rather crude, new-looking grounds. 
Local peculiarities aside (the peculiarity of a 
good table especially), it is not essentially dif- 
ferent from the hotels we find at any of our sec- 
ondary mountain or river-side resorts, and there 
is a democracy and freedom among the guests 
which adds greatly to its attractiveness. 

The lake itself is large enough to have its level 
somewhat disturbed by strong winds, and the 
rich lands adjoining the abbey were formerly sub- 
ject to inundation when long-continued storms 
piled the waters against their shore. The skilful 
old monks drove a tunnel through the adjoining 
hill, which furnished an outlet twenty feet below 
the former level, and thus secured the capital 
drainage of all their farm lands. 

Early the next morning we started for our 
homeward drive, which was without special in- 
terest all the way to Munstermaifeld. Save for 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 23 I 

the interest and novelty which attach to bad 
roads encountered in Europe, much of our way- 
was unattractive. It lay across all of the usual 
lines of travel, and some of it was really difficult ; 
one ford would have done no discredit to South 
Missouri. Bad though the road was, it carried us 
over some hill-tops from which we had magnifi- 
cent views of the high volcanic peaks of the 
farther Eifel, and of the mountains beyond 
the Rhine,- — which became here our blue and 
dreamy horizon. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



SCHLOSS ELTZ. 



WglFTER dining, we set out again for a trip 
I which has more that is charming and 
- interesting, and which I should be more 
glad to repeat, than any that we had made in 
Germany. A short drive brought us to an eleva- 
tion whence, far away to the right, near the head- 
waters of the Eltz, we saw the ruins of the noble 
old castle of Pyrmont. Soon the road sunk be- 
neath the hill-tops, and we continued, with a 
longing and excited expectation, to a point be- 
yond which the carriage could not go. Thence 
we walked down the steep road, past a little way- 
side chapel, and as we passed a vine-grown old 
Calvary station, w r e suddenly came into full view 
of the wonderful Schloss Eltz, — a building that is 
quite without its peer in the world. It stands on 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



233 



a rocky elevation in a wide basin of the Eltz val- 
ley. From our position we looked down upon 
its tower-tops, its turrets, its battlements, and its 
clustering chimneys, which are ten stories above 
its foundation, — for, added to all its other claims 
upon our admiration and interest, Schloss Eltz is 
an enormous structure. 

The Eltz family dates back to an early period 
of the ninth century, but the first record of the 
castle is in the eleventh, since which time it has 
always remained in the possession of this one 
family, who have occupied it from father to son 
to the present day. Fortunately, one of its mem- 
bers was an officer in the destroying army of 
Louis XIV., and through his intercession this 
beautiful example of the feudal castle was saved 
from the wreck that befell all its compeers. Biir- 
resheim was rather a family residence than a 
strong fortress, and it was, no doubt, protected 
by the obscurity of its position. 

Apparently, each successive occupant of Schloss 
Eltz has added some feature peculiar to the cen- 
tury in which he lived, but always in such a way 
as not to detract from the effect of what already 



234 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



existed. The present Count, at the time of our 
visit, was building out a long, sharp-roofed bay- 
window from one of the higher stories, and over- 
looking the upper valley. 

It seems futile to attempt to give in words 
anything like an adequate idea of the weird and 
unworldlike impression which the first view of 
Schloss Eltz, seen as we saw it, must inevitably 
produce. The frontispiece shows its arrange- 
ment and its situation, and gives a fair notion of 
its size. But, sitting as we did at the foot of one 
of the little pilgrim stations which dot the path 
leading from the castle to the chapel, with no 
other building, no human being, and no culti- 
vated field in sight, and no sound in the air, the 
sunshine that lay w r arm upon these mellow old 
walls seemed to wrap them about with a veil of 
mystery, and an old-world charm that carried it, 
and us, far back to the legendary days. Had the 
drawbridge fallen to give passage to a cuirassed 
robber-knight with his stout retainers, going out 
for plunder, or for a raid upon the archbishop's 
castle of Trutz Eltz, whose ruins lie on the hill 
above us, we should have been prepared to ac- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



235 



cept the apparition as entirely natural, and 
should only have shrunk for safety into the thick- 
growing copse at our side. Indeed, I believe 
there is hardly a spot on earth where one so 
entirely loses identity as a member of modern 
society, and drinks in so fully the real flavor of 
mediaeval days, as on this hillside where all that 
he can see is heaven and earth and the wonder- 
ful Schloss Eltz. 

The castle, with its accumulated relics of eight 
hundred years, — the portraits and the arms 
and the furniture and the household gods of the 
family, back to its earliest occupancy of the cas- 
tle, being still preserved, — has been, until re- 
cently, freely shown to the public. We learned 
only too late that it is now closed save to those 
who are armed with an order from Count Eltz, 
who was absent at the time of our visit. Indeed, 
the castle is no longer his chief residence, only 
a hunting-lodge. We crossed the drawbridge, 
passed under the gloomy portal of the doorway, 
and pulled the rusty old iron bell-handle that 
hung from above. The door is a ponderous 
great affair, large enough for the entrance of 



236 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



vehicles, and is of time-worn and undecorated 
oak planks. Through its chinks we could see 
the rough roadway, covered with a black stone 
vaulting, which led on to the inner court. We 
were greeted by the mutterings and growls of 
hounds, and after a time by an elderly female 
voice. Our tones seeming peaceable, she swung 
the gate a little ajar to ask our errand. She 
would take our card to the Forstmeister, and 
would tell him that we had come from the other 
side of the great Atlantic chiefly to see the curi- 
osities of Schloss Eltz, — but she doubted. Her 
mission was unsuccessful ; the Count's orders 
were positive, and there was no hope. 

The feelings with which we regarded the pres- 
ent scion of this ancient house, and the speech 
which gave form to our ideas concerning him, 
may perhaps be safely left to the imagination. 
We contrasted him with the gentle Earl of War- 
wick, who throws the wonderful treasures of his 
great fortress home open to all the world, and 
who gives to the poorest wayfarer the wonderful 
delight of an hour in what is, taken all in all, the 
most remarkable existing combination of what an 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



237 



intelligent American cares most to see in Eu- 
rope. Indeed, our ire almost took the form that 
was shown by Ingoldsby's good bishop when the 
raven had stolen his ring. 

On calmer reflection, I saw a glimpse of justi- 
fication for Count Eltz, remembering how the 
English edition of Baedeker speaks of his castle. 
As our disappointment grew older I was quite 
ready to acknowledge that were I the owner of 
this entirely unique ancestral home, I should in- 
cline to withhold its hospitality from all English- 
speaking persons, for Baedeker says, and this is 
all he says, of this castle : " An ancient resi- 
dence of the noble family of Eltz, most pictu- 
resquely situated, and one of the best specimens 
in Germany of a mediaeval chateau. Many of the 
rooms are furnished in the ponderous style of by- 
gone ages, and the walls are hung with family 
portraits, ancient armor, etc. In the Rittersaal 
(Knights' hall) a book is kept in which visitors 
may record their names, and inspect the autograph 
of the Prince of Wales, who, during his sojourn in 
Germany, visited this delightful spot!' 

I let the foregoing stand as it was first printed, 



238 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



for my ire was a living element of the emotions 
of my visit, afid so a necessary part of my narra- 
tive. But I am very glad to say that after Count 
Eltz had read it he hastened to send me a most 
kindly and courteous letter, expressing great 
regret for my mischance. To protect his treas- 
ures against the crowd of illiterate and often 
drunken visitors to the castle required more 
attendants than he could afford to keep. " It is 
of course not my intention that this order should 
keep away an educated art-loving public, but I can- 
not help it. Whenever a person introduces him- 
self by letter or in person to me, or brings an in- 
troduction to my steward, the castle is shown him 
with pleasure. This letter would open to you, at 
all times, all the doors, and I should esteem my- 
self happy to show you anything noteworthy." 

We made the mistake of not returning to the 
point from which we got our first view of the 
building, but we had passed on down into the 
valley, whence it was too hard a tramp to return, 
and where we lounged until after the time we 
had appointed for our carriage to return to Mo- 
selkern. Seen from the valley, the side of the 



m A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 239 



castle is imposing from its length and its great 
height ; but it is little more than a frowning, 
dark stone wall, unrelieved by any ornament or 
irregularity. We were very glad that the rain 
had prevented us from taking the advice of the 
guide-books, and had sent us the longer way 
round, to get, at the outset, the best impression 
of the castle, — an impression which must have 
lost much of its charm had our first look been at 
this ugly blank side, and had we come around, by 
degrees, to the beautiful front. The view from 
the upper valley looking up under the arch of the 
bridge is hardly less fine than that from the hill- 
side, but nothing can equal — as nothing can 
ever efface — the impression of that quarter-hour 
during which we sat gazing for the first time 
upon this marvel of the Rhineland. 

The footpath from the castle to the Mosel, 
down the winding and picturesque valley of the 
Eltzbach, would be charming for an unencum- 
bered pedestrian, but if one is accompanied by 
one's wife who is timid (and not light), and not 
able to furnish her own transportation across the 
seven fords of the rocky stream, it may become 



24O THE MOSEL IN A ROW-BOAT. 



anxious and fatiguing, — an anxiety and fatigue, 
however, not unrelieved by amusing situations. 
It occupied us for an hour and a half, and as its 
harder parts were its earlier ones, we were in a 
serene frame of mind by the time we struck the 
cultivated valley near its outlet, late in the after- 
noon. The peasants were returning home with 
their cows and goats, and the artist portion of 
our fellow-guests were strolling home to Deiss's 
with their sketch-books, — for Moselkern is a 
favorite headquarters for the summer sojourn of 
Diisseldorf artists, and the hills and valleys and 
villages and castles about it furnish them with 
capital sketching material. 



CHAPTER XV. 



LAST DAYS. 

FTER supper, — with an oarsman as old 
and deaf as Elaine's, and as sturdy as 
our young peasant of Koeverich, — we 
were quickly pulled down the river past the 
white-belted tower of the ruin of Bischofstein, 
and along the always beautiful and thickly peo- 
pled shores to Brodenbach, where we found al- 
most the best Gasthaus we had met with. Thence 
we made, on the following day, a foot-trip up the 
charming valley which leads to Schloss Ehren- 
burg; accounted the finest ruin in the Rhineland. 
It is ponderous and impressive and majestically 
placed. Its enormous round eastern tower, by 
which a spiral roadway is carried to the castle- 
yard at the top of the ramparts, is especially in- 
teresting. It was curious to me, — as another 




242 



evidence of the smallness of the world in which 
we move, — to find that this castle is the property 
of the Count Kielmansegge, who was an officer 
of my Fourth Missouri Cavalry throughout our 
war. 

Leaving Brod^nbith fbfi a:h afternoon row to 
Winningen, we passed through a valley that 
shows, somewhat more than that lying above it, 
the evidence of its nearness to the Rhine. There 
is more activity^ a,n<i ' the ; villages have a better 
preserM§iiiQ9tei Ruined ca$tles/and klosters grow 
more freq^eftfe m& theoeviflehcep whkh^stithxer- 
main of the ecclesiastical establishnients of ceiv- 
turies ago increase. The h illsides .hkvq. geke sally 
a somewhat more cultivated and less picturesque 

turns constantly — brings some new beauty or 
some new marvel into view, so that, although we 
might be supposed .-.to. have become satiated ^Mi 
the peculiar -attractions of the Mosel, we found 

%^.h; delight bJKnfortoatety^ Boficfifere 
was drawing near, and although we had allowed, 
as we supposed, ample leisure to vvandgrifafrerfe 




BISCHOFFSTEIN. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



245 



our fancy might dictate, it had become necessary 
to press forward, — passing many spots where we 
should gladly have lingered, and filling our note- 
book with suggestions for a future visit. 

Indeed, it is one of the charms, or, according to 




one's view, one of the inconveniences, of a careful 
exploration of any such district as the valley of 
the Mosel, that however thoroughly one may 
have planned to investigate all of its interest- 
ing features, there must remain at the end the 



246 TWO HUXDRED MILES 

Suggestion of hundreds of things yet to see and 
to do, — or of annoyance that too narrow a limit 
had been fixed for the expedition/ : 



"ggua rfliw iood 




10 ypllsv 6d1 ?.b johjaib u ^5ug vn£ lo noi^jsiolqxs 
There comes, also, the longing for the day 
when pocket photography will be cheap -and easy, 
and when we who write shall not have to contend 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



247 



a^^^t-^l®^b^?oEitogmving, The old men 
and the old women of the Mosel-land, and the 
chubby little children, and the young men and 
maidens are all clamoring for admission to my 

3f[J moil ylno v/Bg ^ M-^M^ 3^p lonim lodlo bos 
has o^Ellb^^^k ^^aoaT ,ie>vh 

oiorfw h 




UPPER CASTLE AT GONDORF. 

k 



bsqqoJg ovsd Ylbslg blue 



pages; but, alas! they and their picturesque old 
houses must await the coming of the happy day 

-LtJ SilJ 81 t fI13GO%J TO 2iO.Su TnJ^ 9uj HO ll ^1 i J. 

wh^njhptpgraphy.jLn4^ tlpe_ jDrin^ing-press shall 
bgjgeallv gilded. r They are betrothed now, but 



248 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



there are costly formalities still standing between 
them. 

The old church at Aiken, the ruins of Bischof- 
stein, Thuron, Thurant, Bleidenberg, Cobern, 
and other minor castles, we saw only from the 
river. Thus only did we see the village and 
castles of Gondorf, lying on the shore, and where 




THE LOWER CASTLE AT GONDORF, NOW RESTORED. 

we should gladly have stopped for a night at its 
attractive Gasthaus. 

High on the hill, back of Cobern, is the cu- 
rious mediaeval chapel of St. Matthias, — ap- 
proached by a footpath dotted with Calvary sta- 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



249 



lions, — which, is said, offers in its interior a very 
unique and beautiful example of Gothic architec- 
ture. It is a hexagonal building with a circular 




ST. MATTHIAS KAPELLE, KOBERN. 

apse, and is as rich in its carving as the best 
parts of Mont St. Michael. 

We passed our last night at the busy little 
village of Winningen, at a plain-looking Gasthaus 
(Zum Anker), in a narrow and crowded street. 
For cleanliness, comfort, and kindly attention, it 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



gave a pleasant finish to all our experiences of 
Gerrttan%illage inns. I^bxo luliJufisd has oupmu 
Our last morning on the Mosel was passed be- 
tween Winnffigen/and r K^ 

practically in a Rhineland country. Already, far 




X £ffcvT^* ^2 jfr^T/^ "io 
some distance above Winningen, we had been 

struck with the more formal and unpicturesque 

arrangement of the vineyards, w T hose mason-work 

terraces, tilting from this side arid from that 

toward the sun, have less that Is attractive than 



7X A MOSEL ROW-BOA T. 



251 



those farther up the river. The wine, too, loses 
its fine flavor, for the course of the river is 
nearly north, and Koblenz seems to lie outside 
of the charmed southern belt which produces 
the better wines. 

On the left bank of the river, pretty nearly all 
the way from Koch em to the Rhine, there stand, 

regular I dikf Sn^M^ 
kc^ih efr me akSoWsf n t ftel 
the» ONtiQe^ards/nafrd 
to q!iar6djispodg>ittf8 
fe&rit swQbtfSjicrjfchosed 
warning fingersf fc[f// 
modern fate which 



point to the Ba.riyf^| 
doom of the retiredii 
±a<l:\fsylqan -beauty 

W*U§y. e)Tjiift\rait^a^^ 
engineers have setr 
up the red and: white striped sighting-poles 
which mark the course of the great Prussian 
railway, which cis:>tfo go through everything in 
its way, and to fill this peaceful valley with the 




GROUND-PLAN' OF ST. MATTHIAS* 



252 



TWO HUNDRED MILES 



screech and rattle of 
heavy railway trains. 
Practically, after an- 
other year or two, one 
who seeks the hidden 
charms of the old 
Mosel must seek 
them mainly between 
Bernkastel and Ko- 
ch e m, — a goodly 
stretch, after all, to 
have secured, as this 
will be, for the rail- 
way will carry traffic 
almost entirely away 
from it. . 

As we approached 
Koblenz, the quiet 
Mosel village gave 
place to the suburban 
beer-garden, to dan- 
cing pavilions, and to 
places of popular re- 

CLUSTERED COLUMN AT ST. MATTHIAS, sort. The interest 




IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT. 



253 



that the river presents assumes an entirely dif- 
ferent form. Indeed, it is at one point an in- 
terest closely connected with the question of 
personal safety. I had remembered the rough, 
billowy rapids, down which we had passed in the 
steamer several years before, and had asked in 
Trier whether one might safely shoot them in 
a small skiff. I was assured that, although a 
dangerous-looking rapid, it is quite safe, and we 
entered it without misgiving. My advice — after 
experience — to those rowing down the Mosel 
would be to land ladies and baggage above the run, 
taking them up again below. We came through 
safely ; but every wave we struck broke over the 
gunwale, and it became only a question of a few 
pailfuls more or less whether the " Nancy " sank 
or floated. Having come through unscathed, we 
were, of course, glad to have made the experi- 
ment ; but there was much bailing to be done 
before we could go on, and we had the same 
after-taste of danger that had struck us at the 
Schweich ferry. 

Rounding the last bend of the river above 
Koblenz, whence the stream still makes a rapid 



TWO HUNDRED*- : MIL %S 



descent, we had in view, not only the tower -and 
-spines c&ithf mi$ a^4itSiO^Rpflian : ^U| bridge, 
but we almost looked down upon the marvellous 

highrpemh^ Wl^dSSffc 
a rapid run pa^t tl^ jetties to ; the edge of the city, 
and pulled steadily down past its Mosel shore to 
the Rhine. We were urged to land at. Jive ^?jf 
of the Mosel steamboats, but preferred, as , the 
£VjNMaey ■" was :ttp for : a market^ rtaUA^p^^UR^gi 
front of our hotel, opposite ■<*hejjfa$gpjp$ ) $gfft§. 
It is not very far from tl^^^r^afj^^^^ 
where; tfe^xfF^ rivers "join, to the n Artker; M/?£4> 
but to one who has . drifted and rowed and been 
rowed with the current all G tfre^w^y .from -Mf J?, 
these few hundred feet hea-ding against the steady 
torrent of: Old Father Rhine became decidedly 
hard pulling. I did more downright ha^oYE ^ 
from the corner- of Koblenz to the Bridge of Boats 
(perhaps, a thousand feet), than during. o^ir whole 

m®&<&llg mW 3 w bns t no o S bluoo 57/ siolsd 
The morning had been fine, but the clouds 
gathered as we approached the city,, and we had 
not beqn boused for half an hour before a dismal 
rain set in, which lasted with little interruption 
for the succeeding ten days. 



IN A MOSEL ROW-BOAT, 



255 



It would seem proper to put a period to this 
long account of a journey down the Mosel by 
describing Koblenz with some minuteness. But 
Koblenz, although an extremely old town, is, "at 
the same time, a busy, modern town, and any ac- 
count of it must be pitched in a key that would 
throw the whole story of our idling along the 
beautiful river, among its mediaeval towns, and 
through its outlying pastoral villages, sadly into 
discord. Any guide-book of the Rhine will give 
an account of Koblenz and its history that is well 
worth reading, — but to me, its chief interest will 
always lie in the fact that at the wharf above its 
Roman Bridge one may take steamer for Kochem 
or Trier. 




AFTER THE VINTAGE. 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL 



fAKING its rise in the storied 
Vosges, flowing through the 
beautiful plains and valleys of 
Lorraine, and cutting its later 
course through the high region 
that borders the Rhine from> 
Bingen to the Ahr ; watering in its. 
course a land which received the very 
earliest influx of the Eastern races, where^ 
Rome held for four centuries its highest 
Cisalpine court, and where Christianity first 
planted its foot in Northern Europe ; flowing 
through the ancient land of the Treviri, the 
Leuci, and the Remi ; washing slopes whose fer- 




258 LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



tile vineyards led to an early civilized prosperity, 
and bathing the feet of crags where the robber- 
knights and the warlike abbots of the Middle 
Ages built their defensive works, and led their 
riotous and tumultuous lives ; enriched since the 
earliest time, from its very source to its junc- 
tion with the Rhine, with every interest that 
historic association can give, and every charm 
that superstition and poetry can lend; — with 
such a location and such a history it is quite a 
matter of course that the Mosel, from its cradle 
in the Alsatian hills to its bridal bed beneath 
the heights of Ehrenbreitstein, is decked at every 
step of its way with story and fancy and endless 
legend. 

Legendary lore is marked with elements of 
such extreme simplicity, and it implies to such a 
degree a faith in the holy traditions of the church, 
that it rarely rises to the level of philosophic wis- 
dom. Neither does it always command a position 
of the highest regard in modern literature. But 
it is to be remembered that a due appreciation 
of nearly all that the Mosel has to offer implies 
something else than an intellectual modern criti- 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



259 



cism. It is a land which the modern spirit has 
not yet invaded, — a land to which we go back, 
with simple hearts, accepting with childlike faith 
the habits of thought of an age which, with us, has 
long passed, but which here remains unspoiled. 

High up, in what is still left to France of 
southern Lorraine, stands the old town of Toul, 
where the Leuci had their capital and concen- 
trated their splendor ; and where were fixed the 
fiercer virtues which produced the race of Charles 
Martel, — who stopped the tide of Moslem inva- 
sion, and saved Western Europe to Christianity. 
Here too are the fields of the early triumphs 
of the blue-eyed, yellow-haired, and hardy race, 
which lived by its fierce bravery, and which, 
dying on the battle-field, passed to the embraces 
of the Walkyren, who hovered over the combat 
and chose their eternal lovers from the dying 
warriors, — receiving them with fresh caresses as 
they came home each evening from the success- 
ful battle-fields of Walhalla. 

These old races worshipped the sun and moon 
and fire, — gods whom they could see and whose 
beneficence they could feel. They worshipped 



260 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



them always on the hill-tops, and when the 
Christian teachers came to claim their faith, they 
had the wisdom to locate their shrines too upon 
the hills, availing themselves, as has always been 
their shrewd custom, of the accidents of hea- 
then worship to make the change of faith easier. 
Amid the romantic influences by which these 
people were surrounded, there grew up a poetic 
belief in nixies, fairies, and all manner of mystic 
denizens of the under-world, — a faith that long 
outlived heathenism and gave its poetic side to 
the much more recent so-called Christian belief. 

It was the land of these old German races 
which the Romans conquered so easily and held 
so long. But their conquest never included the 
German people themselves. These held them- 
selves superior to their Southern conquerors and 
allies, never adopting their habits, — only bor- 
rowing their knowledge as a weapon for final 
triumph. Ingrafting upon their own sturdy char- 
acter the arts and cultivation of their invaders, 
they transmitted to their successors, the Ger- 
mans, the Dutch, and the English, qualities 
which have carried civilization over the earth. 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 26 1 



The aqueduct at Jouy aux Arches is said by 
the legend to have been built by the Devil. For 
some unknown consideration, he was to complete 
it before cock-crow ; but the cock mistaking his 
time crowed too soon, and the Devil, in irritation 
with the bird and with himself, kicked down one 
of the unoffending arches and abandoned the pro- 
ject. This early mishap led to the subsequent 
ruinous condition of the aqueduct. By another 
legend this aqueduct was built by Agita (Noah's 
daughter) out of extreme caution. Remembering 
the inconveniences and dangers of the deluge, she 
raised these arches to secure a safe position above 
the next flood. Aside from its use for the water- 
supply of Metz, it filled a vast basin in which the 
Romans fought heroic naval battles. For nearly 
a thousand years it has been a ruin. 

One of the most curious legends of the neigh- 
borhood of Metz is that of Alexander and his 
miraculous shirt. As he was starting for the 
crusades, his wife Florentina presented him with 
— the greatest comfort of a campaigner — a shirt 
that should always retain its purity. Alexander 



262 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



was taken prisoner and set at work as a slave. 
The Sultan expressed curiosity as to his always 
appearing in a clean shirt. Alexander told him 
that it was a miraculous garment which would 
always remain as spotless as his wife's virtue. 
The Sultan, having no high opinion of the sex, 
despatched a cunning messenger to undermine 
the w r ife's integrity. He failed in his enterprise, 
but Florentina, learning from him the condition 
to which her husband had fallen, disguised her- 
self as a pilgrim, and wandered to his place of 
captivity. Being a sweet and attractive singer, 
she charmed the Sultan himself to that degree 
that he promised her a slave of her own selection. 
She chose, of course, the happy Alexander, giving 
him his liberty, and receiving in exchange a piece 
of the wonderful garment that he wore. She re- 
turned to Metz, where he had arrived before her, 
and had heard, of her long absence during his cap- 
tivity. When she returned in her true character, 
although the shirt still retained its whiteness, he 
reproached her bitterly for her infidelity. She 
silenced his reproaches by producing the frag- 
ment of the white shirt which he had given her 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



263 



in the East ; " and they lived happily ever after- 
ward." 

The Count Metternich held the rank and title 
of Burscheid, which gave him the right of presid- 
ing at the Landtag at Echternach. The Abbot 
of Echternach fancied that he himself should hold 
this honor, and he presumed, on one occasion, to 
take the chair and open the session before Met- 
ternich arrived. When the latter finally strode 
up the hall, with helmet and sword, he called out : 
" Make way for the Metternich, as is his due. 
My little abbot, your rule is at an end ! " The 
abbot invited him to a chair at his side, but 
the irascible count knocked him from his seat. 
When he regained breath he hurled the anath- 
ema of the church upon his noble assailant, and 
the assembly fled in alarm. Presently, Metter- 
nich received a letter from the emperor, order- 
ing him to ask the abbot's pardon, promising 
that the latter should then take off the load of 
imprecations. 

"I must obey the emperor, if not the church," 
said the count. He sent word to the abbot that 



264 LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



he craved forgiveness and friendship, and said 
that he should soon present himself in person to 
do penance for his crime. The abbot's face was 
wreathed with smiles as he received this message, 
and he sent the glad tidings to all his brethren to 
be present on the great day of the church's tri- 
umph. The holy men collected to him from far 
and near, enjoying in advance the abasement of 
the proud noble, and thinking of the sumptuous 
feasting that was in store for them. Metternich 
collected the contingents of the army of the realm, 
consisting of many stately knights and vassals, and 
marched proudly to Echternach. The roomy 
walls of the abbey were soon filled to overflow- 
ing. The sight of this army filled the old abbot 
with fear, and his fat limbs were at first fairly par- 
alyzed ; but as his unwelcome guest behaved with 
great politeness he regained his calm, and ordered 
that the throng should be entertained with the 
best the abbey could afford. The count's retain- 
ers were neither slow in accepting hospitality nor 
dainty in their indulgences. Soon the banquet- 
hall resounded with feasting and drinking and song, 
and the riot reached even the cloisters and the 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 265 



vast cellars. Hundreds of horses devoured the 
winter's store of oats and hay in the great stables. 

" Very well ; let them feast ! " cried the holy 
shepherd. " After supper, their haughty lord 
will do penance in due form." Alas ! all night 
and all the next day the knights and the varlets 
kept up their carouse, and the horses were gorged 
in the stables. " To-night, at least," said the ab- 
bot, " he surely will be at my feet." But the 
kitchens and cellars and stables remained filled 
with the jovial and riotous crowd ; until at last 
the steward reported that the store of oats and 
hay were gone, the butler that the cellars con- 
tained but empty barrels, and the cook that the 
larder was bare. Hereupon the abbot reflected, 
and ordered his letter of indulgence to be made 
out at once, "for by St. Peter, I must be a fool 
to let this lord lead me such a dance." 

Then the knights rode forth in great glee, roll- 
ing with laughter and with drunkenness, while 
the abbot, scratching his head with tardy per- 
ception, exclaimed with consoling and prophetic 
accents : " Many a man shall be fleeced by Met- 
ternich yet," — a prophecy w T hich the dwellers 



265 



LEGEXDS OF THE MOSEL . 



of the Mosel believe to have been measurably 
fulfilled. 

The cardinal legend of Trier, a legend which 
hangs on the inscription near the Rothes Haus, 
" Ante Roman Treviris Stetit Annis Mille Tre- 
centis," is that which ascribes its founding to Tre- 
beta, the banished step-son of Semiramis, whose 
Asiatic hordes settling in this fertile valley became 
the renowned Treviri of the Roman era. The 
educated classes of the city of course shrug their 
shoulders at any question of the unsophisticated 
traveller as to the positive evidence of the legend, 
or as to the origin of the inscription ; but among 
the people, — especially with an old book-binder 
and an old shoemaker with whom I several times 
took wine in a little side-street restaurant, — this 
article of faith seemed almost the only one that 
has been unshaken by more recent events. The 
holv coat, Constantine's cross, and much that 
rests on historic proof, they were willing to re- 
ject, but that Trier was not founded by Tre- 
betar thirteen hundred years before Romulus 
and Remus, was to them an impious scepti- 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 267 



cism, and their faith is firm in the genuineness 
of Prince Trebeta's picture in the town-hall, — 
a youthful prince sitting on his father's knee and 
playing with the spires of the cathedral. 

One of the best rooted of the Trier legends 
is that of St. Nicholas and the boatman. This 
saint occupies a snug niche on the upper side 
of the bridge, and holds his protecting wand 
over all traffic by the river. He receives, to this 
day, much faith and reverence from the river 
boatmen. But once, in the old time, a legendary 
mariner served him a shabby trick. His boat 
was in great danger, as it was rushing with the 
swollen stream toward the black piers of the 
bridge, and he fell on his knees calling to the 
saint for help, and vowing an offering to him of 
a wax candle as big as the mast of his vessel. 
St. Nicholas, taking him under special protection, 
guided his craft safely to the entrance of the 
arch, beyond which there was no danger. The 
boatman, finding himself secure, snapped his fin- 
gers at the saint, measured a nail's length on his 
thumb, and cried out, " Nicholas, thou shalt not 



268 



LEGEXDS OF THE MOSEL. 



have so much ! " The patient saint scored a long 
black mark against the skipper and bided his 
time. When the faithless man sailed down the 
stream for his next year's trip, Nicholas quietly 
veered the boat against the pier of the bridge 
and drowned its masters false prayers in the 
surging whirl of the Mosel. 

The builder of the cathedral in Trier secured 
the Devil's assistance by assuring him that he 
was building a gambling and drinking palace. 
It was not necessary even to promise him the 
conventional " first soul that should pass the por- 
tal," the danger to all souls entering being a good 
and sufficient consideration. As the building 
went on, the Devil grew suspicious, but being told 
that the altars were tables for dice, and receiving 
similar assurances as to other details, he worked 
faithfully until he saw the bishop consecrating 
the building for a church, when, as the bells 
tolled solemnly, he found that he had been out- 
witted. He rushed at one of the altars to tear 
it down, but it had already been consecrated, and 
he fled with a yell, leaving a claw sticking to it, 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



269 



and resolving to build no more churches without 
a written agreement. 

In legend and history we have well-attested facts 
and many vague rumors which show that the clois- 
tered monks and nuns of the Middle Ages were far 
less austere in their morals, and less careful of the 
impression they should make upon the people, than 
are those of our own later and more civilized time. 
Many of the legends of the Mosel which relate 
to the deeds of the bishops and archbishops have 
an air of improbability to our minds, because 
of the unholy character of the acts ascribed to 
them : but such apology is nullified by a chron- 
icler of the fifteenth century who says that "nuns 
did what the Devil was ashamed to think; and 
that abbots by means of their poverty became the 
greatest proprietors, of their obedience, mighty 
princes, and of their chastity, husbands of all wo- 
men. Indeed, men were heard to complain that 
they were not rich enough to become monks." 

The territory between Igel and Pfalzel — that 
is, the broad basin of Trier and its surrounding 



2/0 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



hills and valleys — is crowded with a mass of in- 
terlaced legends which it is difficult to unravel 
and make intelligible. They are partly mythical 
and partly religious, and they have more or less 
of purely figurative character. The personages 
represent day and night, life and death, light and 
darkness, and good and evil, — indiscriminately, 
confusedly, and always very blindly. These le- 
gends have lived, not for their figurative or hid- 
den meaning, but for the simple human interest 
that has attached the popular mind to their 
leading characters. The legends of Orendel, of 
Wilkina, and of Melusina, there related, are as- 
sumed to have more or less connection with the 
legend of Lohengrin. Then, too, the students 
of legendary lore have shown them to be pre- 
sumably connected with myths of other lands ; 
for example, Eigel, Orendel's father, performed 
Tell's feat of shooting an apple from his son's 
head ; and Orendel's bride, who lived in Palestine 
and owned the Holy Sepulchre, and for whom he 
led to the East eight kings, a thousand knights, 
and an army of lesser soldiery, takes her name 
from her character, the word being Breide (bright) 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



2/1 



or the same as the Irish Bridget, — daughter of 
the day. She is also the Bertha of German my- 
thology. 

The same authorities bring into the same 
mythological relation the beautiful legend of Gen- 
oveva, but this sad, sweet story is far too complete 
to be hidden under the clouds which surround its 
sisters. Whatever its mystical meaning or its 
figurative character, it lives in the hearts of the 
people purely by its own inherent and obvious 
virtues. 

The Count Palatine Siegfried lived in his gray 
castle at Pfalzel with his beautiful wife, Genoveva, 
Countess of Brabant. When he went to the 
Spanish wars he left Golo, his nephew, as stew- 
ard, with full authority over his estates and peo- 
ple, giving him his own sword as his badge of 
authority. Golo burned with illicit love for his 
mistress, and pressed his suit to the extent of de- 
claring that Siegfried's sword had given him the 
power of life and death over all in the castle, and 
that all must bend to his will and his wishes. 
Resenting and resisting his advances with the 
purest and most faithful reliance on the power 



272 LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



and goodness of her absent lord, she aroused 
Golo's fierce vengeance. He slandered her in 
his reports to Siegfried, who returned an order 
condemning her to death. Genoveva was led to 
the wood for execution, but her prayers softened 
the heart of the servant, Drago, who was intrusted 
with the murderous duty. He spared her life on 
the condition that she should not leave the wood. 
While there, she bore a son to Siegfried. For 
seven years she lived in the forest, and fed on 
herbs and roots, while her boy was suckled by a 
hind. 

During his long years of absence, and after his 
return, Siegfried's mind was harassed with doubt 
and fears ; his nights were disturbed by horrid 
dreams. Golo applied himself to quieting his 
master's fears, and begged him to think lightly of 
the dreams by which his nights were tormented, 
interpreting them always favorably. Siegfried 
dreamed of a dragon that was approaching his 
wife to devour her, and that no one came to her 
aid as she screamed for help; it seemed as though 
he himself were the dragon that threatened the 
unfortunate wife, for he had condemned her too 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



273 



precipitately and without hearing her defence. 
Golo assured him that the interpretation was 
clear, for the dragon was only suggested by the 
name of Drago, the scoundrelly cook, who was 
her lover, and who by his sudden death had got 
his deserts. Again Siegfried dreams that his 
hounds are chasing a snow-white hind, and that 
he follows their trail through the wood ; that,, 
blinded by excitement, he had wounded this hind,, 
white as innocence itself, with an arrow ; that as 
the blood runs from the wound the beast looks, 
into his face with its great solemn eyes as though' 
it would accuse him of what he had done. Golo 
said, " It is possible that this dream is not a de- 
ceptive one, and you may sooner or later meet a 
white hind, — they are not very rare, and spotless 
ones are plenty. As to the expression of the 
eyes, they all have a tender and reproachful look."' 
To this evasion the count replied : " To-day my 
fate shall be fixed ; let all my followers get ready 
for the chase, and see that the falcons are not 
overfed, for the snow is deep, and the hind that 
runs so fast at other times can surely not escape- 
me now." Many falcons had been let loose, many 



274 



LEGEXDS OF THE MOSEJL 



horses were exhausted, much game had been 
slain, and still the count pursued a spotless white 
deer through the forest. At last he came near 
enough to wound it with an arrow. The animal 
fled into a thicket, and the count, following, found 
it at the feet of a beautiful woman who was 
stanching the wound, and near whom a child was 
playing. It was Genoveva and her son. Her 
only covering was her rich golden hair, which 
reached to her feet. Recovering from her fright 
at the unexpected meeting, she said, " Give me 
first your cloak and then will I speak to you." 
Then Siegfried saw 7 the innocence of his wife, 
and clasped her and his son to his heart, re- 
proaching himself utterly for his cruel credulity 
and his grievous error. 

As Genoveva had gone from the castle, cross- 
ing the bridge over the Runer, she threw 7 her 
marriage ring into the brook, thinking thus to 
free Siegfried from his marriage obligations, and 
so to lessen the crime he was laying upon his 
soul. As she was returning in triumph with her 
lord, their tents were pitched at the Mosel-side, 
and their dinner was being prepared. A fisher- 



LEGENDS OF THE A/OS EL. 



275 



man brought a fine trout as a tribute to his mas- 
ter, and on opening this the cook found in its 
belly the very ring that Genoveva had thrown 
over the bridge seven years before. Thus was 
the symbol of their lasting and faithful union 
restored. Siegfried bore his wife back to Pfalzel 
castle, and related the wondrous tale to his 
guests, who filled the air with joyous shouts. 
Presently the bleeding head of Golo hung above 
the castle gate. 

The legend of Thai Veldenz tells of a betrothed 
maiden whose knightly lover, lost in the crusades, 
would never return ; he had found his last rest- 
ing-place, beyond doubt, in the distant Saracen 
land. 

" The flowers are again blooming, death severs 
every bond, so why dost thou continue to grieve?" 
Thus spoke the dame to her daughter, who re- 
plied : — 

" See, mother, this ring binds him and me for 
all time. By day and by night it brings his be- 
loved face before me, and it often seems to press 
my hand softly and to whisper in my ear." 



2?6 LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



" Nothing short of witchcraft residing in the 
ring could do this thing," said the mother, "and 
thus affect your imagination. Be advised by me, 
and throw the ring into the well. Peace of mind 
will then return to you, and your eyes will then 
be bright as of yore." 

The maiden, with a sigh, cast the ring into the 
well, and as she did so it looked like an open 
grave to her. But the merry singing of the birds 
soon cheered her heart, and her grief lessened 
with each day. 

One morning her maid brought to her a silver 
jug filled with water, — and lo, the ring lay at 
the bottom of the jug. The old dame cried an- 
grily : — 

" Well, if it refuses to stay under water, we shall 
see whether the earth cannot hold it down." 

They buried the jewel in the garden, and the 
mother said : — 

" Now, my child, forget what has passed and 
enjoy life as you should." 

Summer came, the earth was clad in flowers 
once more, and a blooming bean-stalk climbed 
the wall of the house, until it reached the maid- 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL, 2J7 



en's window. It bore to her casement her faith- 
ful lovers ring. 

" O mother ! what have I done ? " she cried. 

" Never mind, child, we shall conquer yet. 
Fire, which defeats the strongest, will end the 
matter." 

" O mother, mother ! " cried the girl, " hold ; 
do not try it more. It is a sacrilege. I can 
never belong to another; I shall remain true to 
him until my death." 

The mother took the ring by force, and ran to 
the hearth to throw it into the fire, when a voice 
cried, " Hold, let me speak," and the lost lover 
himself stood on the threshold, returned in hearty 
life to wed his Veldenz bride, and to put the 
faithful symbol to its proper use. 

One dark and stormy night there passed 
through the gates of the abbey of Spanheim a 
man wrapped in a huge cloak. He walked 
slowly along the cloisters and knocked at the 
abbot's door, — the pious old Trithemius, before 
whom the people stood bareheaded, and learned 
doctors inclined their brows, and monks trem- 



278 LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



bled. As the holy man was regarding the stran- 
ger, whose figure showed him still a youth, but 
one whom sorrow had sadly aged, he was thus 
accosted : " Honored sire, a king stands before 
you as a suppliant. A short time ago I was pos- 
sessed of honor, lands, and love ; but now I am 
doomed to be a vassal forever. Grief is now my 
king, but his tyrannical hand rests heavy on 
my head. My love, alas ! is fled. The crown is 
still mine, but its sharp points pierce my brow. 
O father, call her back whom I have lost. You, 
the friend of the spirits above, can surely restore 
her to me." The abbot gently took the hand of 
his visitor, whom he recognized, and gazing upon 
him with looks of love led him forth into the 
night. Here he knelt down and prayed. Pres- 
ently there appeared two glowing sceptres in the 
inky sky. " Behold," said the abbot, " choose the 
pow T er to destroy, or to create. Death" and life 
hold these sceptres. With the one a wise man 
can move the world, with the other fools beat 
their peoples about like shuttlecocks. The one 
is a plain staff on which you may support your- 
self; the other is pointed like a dagger ; the 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



279 



rubies that ornament it are drops of blood, and 
the diamonds are hardened tears, while the marks 
on the handle are traces of the grasp of a tyrant. 
In yonder gardens, where the harvests of time are 
ripening, the one will stand a barren tree, per- 
haps a malefactor's pillory, while the other will be 
a spreading palm under whose shade we may 
rest in peace." Then the sceptres disappeared 
and a splendid star arose, out of whose centre a 
lovely face looked smilingly on the king. 

" See the happiness her sainted face expresses ; 
she has left all her pain and tears in her grave. 
They have grown into white roses and cypresses, 
while she gazes smilingly upon them. Your 
duty is to act with vigor ; strong deeds are re- 
quired of you. Let these be her monument. So 
to work. Arise ! You cannot gaze upward to- 
ward the sun while your eyes are filled with tears, 
and a trembling hand is unfitted to hold a scep- 
tre. To dry your eyes, to strengthen your heart, 
to fan the flame within, which incites to noble 
works, these are the magic power which God has 
given our priesthood. Be strong, good prince, be 
wise, and depart in peace." Thus gravely spoke 



280 LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



the abbot, and his words made a deep impression 
on Maximilian. As king or emperor, no one 
bore the crown or grasped the sceptre more 
nobly. 

The little village of Cues, opposite Bernkastel, 
is haunted by the shade of the wicked Maurus. 
In the flesh, he was a drunkard and a scoffer 
at all holy things, and a sad wife-beater. The 
neighbors were constantly obliged to protect his 
good woman from his brutality. He reeled home 
one night, drunk as usual, determined to beat his 
wife for her suspicions, if she were sitting up for 
him, and to beat her for her neglect if she had 
gone to bed. A man in black, bearing a lantern, 
offered to guide him to his house. The two went 
on, the man in black leading the black-hearted 
man. In the morning Maurus was found dead 
at the foot of a cliff. His sorrowing wife, forget- 
ful of her injuries, gave him a suitable funeral, 
and laid the body in the churchyard. As the 
cortege returned to the house they saw Maurus 
at the upper window, where he had been scoffing 
at his own funeral. To the horror of the village, 



LEGENDS OF THE AfOSEL. 



28l 



he continued to haunt the upper story of his 
wife's house, until finally three priests exorcised 
the wraith, and forced him into the country. 
Here he amused himself with calling to the ferry- 
man, " Fetch over ! Fetch over ! " Crossing to 
pick up the traveller, he found Maurus jeering 
at him, and clapping his hands. At last the 
priests attacked him again and drove him into 
the forest. Still, at times, he sneaks into the 
town and sits at the door of his old house, and 
his voice is still heard in the forest, — which he 
is doomed to haunt forever. 

The Countess Lauretta von Spanheim gath- 
ered her friends and relatives together to hold a 
council at Starkenburg on the Mosel. She told 
how hate and cupidity were threatening her, and 
how the Bishop of Trier coveted the inheritance 
of her little son. She asked what she should do. 
The assembled nobles looked very grim, but said 
never a word, until Bernhardt, the scrivener, 
stepped forward and said, after making his rev- 
erence : — 

"My lady, since the bishop has designs on you 



282 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



and yours, how would it be if we brought him to 
you ? A messenger tells me he is on his way, 
and will soon pass the castle." 

At this news, the knights joyously mounted 
their steeds in haste, and rode to the Mosel 
bank. A chain was stretched from shore to 
shore, and the soldiers hid themselves in the 
thicket. Presently there appeared a small vessel, 
bearing the stately form of Baldwin, who was 
floating in all security down the river to Kob- 
lenz, —for who would dare lay hands on him 
who had beaten all his foes ? As he was direct- 
ing his oarsmen to pull heartily, that he might 
reach Zell before dark, and just as the sun was 
setting the boat crashed against the chain, and 
his enemies sprang from their hiding-places to 
cage this lion of Trier. Lord Volker von Star- 
kenburg, who headed them, cried out : — 

" Surrender, most gracious lord ; you have 
never called on the Countess, and now she begs 
for your company. It is not far to her castle, 
and, with your permission, we will accompany 
you thither." 

So saying, they hurried their prisoner to the 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 283 



castle, where the Countess awaited them. As 
the gates closed behind him, the bishop lost all 
hope. At first he gazed sternly at the Countess, 
but her beauty and gentleness soon softened his 
looks, and he ended by accusing his luck for this 
mishap. She entertained him royally, and smiled 
on him until he was glad his followers did not 
come to his rescue. Days and months passed 
away in pleasant intercourse until his people — 
left without a head — clamored for his release, 
promising to pay the Countess whatever ransom 
she wished. 

" Well," said the sly countess, laughing, " if 
you insist on it you may go ; but first, my lord, 
you must pardon my crime ; swear to keep the 
peace with me and to aid me in my troubles in 
the future. You shall pay me too for cook and 
cellar." The terms were hard, but the lord- 
bishop proved himself a man, and when at liberty 
he kept the word he had given in bondage. He 
freed her from the anathema that had been 
placed on her for her crime, and with the money 
he paid she built a fortress high up on the 
rocks above Trarbach. Its ruins are still there, 



284 LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



a monument of the shrewdness of the Lady of 
Grafinburg. 

The master-builder of the castle of Winneburg 
was in danger of forfeiting his contract, which re- 
quired him to have it completed before Christmas 
night. He appealed to a mysterious stranger 
whom he met at the side of the Mosel, and 
offered to give up even his own life if he might 
be enabled to finish his work in time. The 
stranger offered to help him on one condition. 
"To gain your end," said he, "you have scorned 
your very life, so what I ask of you is but little, 
— only your daughter. As you were willing to 
quit that which was highest without regret, wall 
up her spotless body in the foundation of the 
tower." The master saw the jaws of hell gape 
for him already ; but his pride as a builder was 
stronger than his love for his child, and she was 
sacrificed to his ambition. At midnight the hor- 
rible deed was done, and a passing boatman heard 
the wail of the victim, borne to him on the heavy 
night-air. 

Thus, in compact with the powers of hell, was 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



285 



the tower of Winneburg founded. It stands in- 
tact, and the spirit that guards it can be heard 
sighing nightly about its walls as the clouds drive 
past. 

St. Castor, having dedicated his life to God, 
lived in the depths of the forest. He fed on 
herbs, and drank only water from the spring. 
The heathenish people round about heard of this 
man who lived alone in the wood. They came 
and listened to his teachings until a Christian 
village arose in the forest, and the praises of the 
Lord were sung in its church. For many long 
years he led this simple, peaceful, useful life, and 
passed away a true saint, modestly content with 
the success of the great work he had aided. 
Centuries after his death, a priest dreamed that 
in the land of Carden there still lay the remains 
of the holy and now renowned St. Castor. Three 
times did the vision return, and he was led to 
visit Trier and tell the Bishop his dream. The 
needed steps were ordered taken to discover St. 
Castor's grave, — the Bishop desired, the prayers 
of the pious, and begged all true believers to 



286 



LEGEXDS OF THE MO SEE 



assemble. After the prayer and fasting of the 
multitude, the grave in which St. Castor lay 
was opened to their astonished gaze. Over 
this grave was raised the stately church of St. 
Castor. 

The legend of " The Knight and the Maiden" 
relates how young Walter the heir of Ehrenburg, 
pining under the dull restraint of the castle, 
begged to be allowed to go to the forthcoming car- 
nival at Koblenz. His father gave him permis- 
sion on condition that he should on no account 
draw his sword, nor allow himself to become in 
any way embroiled with the people of the town, 
with whom the family was on almost hostile terms. 
Walter found the streets full of gay maskers, 
and he went on to the inn by the shore. As he 
rode through the gateway, a scornful voice from 
a window called out, "What, sir, are two men 
all the following Ehrenburg can afford ? " The 
speaker was the young Count of Isenburg, at 
whose side stood a beautiful girl. Walter put 
his hand on his sword ; but remembering his 
promise, glanced on the Count scornfully, and 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



287 



entered his chamber. While looking from his 
window on the gay throng crossing the Mosel 
bridge, there came a timid knock at his door. 
To his surprise he saw the fair maid who had 
stood at the Count's window. With trembling 
accents she begged him to fly, for Isenburg had 
gone to the town to stir up the people against 
him. "Fair lady," said Walter, "many thanks 
for your kindness, but — " She interrupted him ; 
" I am no lady, sir ; a heavy yoke is on our necks ; 
my father is a serf, and " — bursting into tears — 
u Isenburg seeks to possess me." " Unhappy 
girl," cried Walter, " you are worthy of a better 
fate. Who can dare to attack me ? " he added, 
enraged. " I am under the protection of the town 
while keeping the peace. But you must follow 
me to Ehrenburg. There you shall be protected 
from the brutalities of your master." She an- 
swered, " Do not think of saving me, every mo- 
ment is precious to you ; so hasten away, for the 
Count will soon return." Then the door was burst 
open by the Count, who bellowed, " Yes, trollop, 
I am here ; what do you mean by being with this 
bastard ? " Whereupon he attacked Walter, but 



288 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



the latter laid him low with a blow of his sword. 
With his attendants he mounted, and cut his 
way through the mob, which shouted, " Down 
with the Ehrenburger ; he has broken the peace 
of the town ! " Thanks to the speed of their 
horses, they reached the castle in safety. The 
old knight upbraided Walter for his recklessness, 
but was pleased with the bravery with which he 
had freed himself. A friend of the Ehrenburgs, 
the knight of Polch, sent them word that the 
townsmen of Koblenz were collecting to attack 
the castle. They prepared to meet the enemy, 
who appeared in strong force at break of day. 
The attack was in vain, and after losing heavily 
they retired, first wreaking their vengeance on 
the knight by laying waste his fields and vine- 
yards. 

Rupert, the Count Palatine, went to the coun- 
cillors of the city, and ordered that this feud 
should end. 

But Frederick demanded satisfaction for his 
wasted fields. Wallrade, the fair maiden, was 
lying miserably in jail with her father. Walter 
burned with love for her, and proposed to his 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 289 



father to free her. The Ehrenburgers collected 
their retinues, and rode forth for a sudden attack 
upon the town. Entering the gates, they avenged 
their losses and freed the maiden and her father. 
Walter led Wallrade in triumph to the castle as 
his bride. 

The following legend of " Henry and Bertha " 
is the last which is connected with the river : 
Henry stands on the Mosel bridge at Koblenz, 
awaiting his love, who is rowing down the Mosel. 
At last, in the distance, he sees the boat which 
bears Bertha, his love. His heart beats fast and 
his cheeks glow as he beckons to her. As she 
answers his call, tears of joy course down her 
cheeks. The boatmen, all attentive to the loving 
pair, neglect to guide the boat, which is dashed 
against a rock in the stream. With a cry of an- 
guish they all sink, the maiden calling her beloved 
by name, For a moment his heart is breaking 
with grief; but led by love and despair, he leaps 
the parapet, and casts himself into the rapid 
stream. In his strong arms he seizes his love, 
who has fainted, and bears her safely to the 



290 



LEGENDS OF THE MOSEL. 



shore. Opening her tender blue eyes, she finds 
herself in the arms of Henry, her lover and her 
savior. The throng gathers about them shouting 
with joy, and calling on Heaven above to cherish 
and guard them forever. 

The foregoing are examples taken almost at 
random from " Des Mosellandes Geschichten Sa- 
gen und Legenden, aus dem Munde deutscher 
Dichter," by N. Hocker of Trier. They lose 
their charm in translation, and in prose render- 
ing, but it seemed worth while to give, even in 
this imperfect form, some idea of the legendary 
lore of the Mosel valley, which still finds almost 
implicit acceptance among its people. 



THE RIVER MOSEL AND ITS 
OLD ROMAN POET. 

BY CHARLES T. BROOKS. 



THE RIVER MOSEL AND ITS 
OLD ROMAN POET. 



HE guide-books of the Rhineland, 
in their descriptions of the Mosel 
region, occasionally mention, and 
perhaps quote, the glowing strains 
in which the Latin writer, Auso- 
nius, fifteen hundred years ago, celebrated its 
lovely scenery. To most readers, however, Auso- 
nius is hardly more than a name. Before taking 
up, therefore, his famous poem, of which it is 
the chief purpose of this paper to give copious 
specimens, we shall speak for a moment of the 
Poet and the man himself. 

Decimus Magnus Ausonius, son of an eminent 
and esteemed physician, who died at the good 
old age of ninety, was born at Bordeaux (Burdi- 
gala) early in the fourth century, and lived nearly 
to its close. 




294 



THE RIVER M OS EL 



The predictions of his grandfather, who had 
(soon after his birth) cast the infant's horoscope, 
and their echoes by surrounding friends and 
neighbors, may have not only stimulated that 
self-complacency in the boy and youth, which 
continued, in a mild and amiable way, through 
manhood and old age, but, what was better, kin- 
dled in him the ambition to fulfil the glowing 
anticipations his elders had formed of his future 
career. 

His highest ambition would presumably have 
been, to be not exactly Decimus Magnus (tenth 
great), but Secundus Magnus, — the Second 
Great Ausonius ; for of his father Julius he him- 
self says : — 

" As, in his life time, Ausonius had none whom he followed as 
master, 

So is there none now alive ever can imitate him." 

The young Ausonius received a legal training, 
and practised for a while at the bar ; but he soon 
showed so decided a taste and talent for letters, 
that his father procured him tutors to accomplish 
him in both languages (Greek as well as Latin) ; 
and at the age of thirty we find him beginning 



AND ITS OLD ROMAN POET. 295 



to teach as a grammarian in his native town. 
But it was not long before he was promoted to a 
Chair of Rhetoric, which he continued to occupy 
for a number of years. At length his growing 
reputation, aided, perhaps, by that of his father, 
who had been called, as physician, to the Impe- 
rial household, induced the Emperor Valentinian 
to appoint him successively Questor and Prefect, 
for Gaul and some other provinces. And finally, 
when he was about fifty years old, or upward,, 
the Emperor sent for him to be tutor to his son 
Gratian. He accompanied them on their cam- 
paigns against the tribes of Northern Barbarians, 
and amused his leisure hours, on the marches or 
in the armistices, in his favorite philological and 
poetic exercises. It was during one of these 
campaigns, probably when he was residing in 
some administrative capacity at the venerable 
city of Trier, that he conceived at least the most 
famous of his poems, the description of the River 
Mosella. 

His pupil, Gratian, had now become himself 
Emperor; and one of his earliest acts was to show 
his grateful appreciation of the character and ser- 



296 



THE RIVER MOSEL 



vices of Ausonius by investing him, at the age of 
seventy, with the Consular dignity. The letter 
of thanks Ausonius wrote in acknowledgment of 
this honor is one of the most remarkable pieces 
of sustained praise to the face we remember in 
all literature. The simple-hearted old master 
fully appreciates the wisdom of his pupil in mak- 
ing the selection, and his delicacy in the letter 
announcing his decision. He actually praises 
himself in praising the Imperial pupil who praises 
him, — and he does it, apparently, with a charm- 
ing half-unconsciousness. He admires the ingen- 
ious modesty with which the Emperor mystified 
the courtiers in regard to his preferred candidate. 
He had told them there could be no doubt who was 
the man. He quotes back in capital letters to the 
Emperor many of his own phrases. For instance, 
Gratian having said, Designavi, et declaravi, et 
nuncupavi (thee as Consul), Ausonius seems to 
have found this climax more eloquent than the 
' Veni y vidi, vicil and exclaims, " Who taught 
thee these words ? I never knew any so appro- 
priate and so Latin ! " 

Ausonius did not long enjoy his Consular hon- 



AND ITS OLD ROMAN POET. 297 



ors. A few years after, Gratian was cut off, and 
the old man asked a release from public office, 
and went back to spend the few remaining years 
of his life in honor and happiness at the old home- 
stead in the suburbs of dear Burdigala, and by 
the shores of his loved Garonne. In his " Praise 
of Cities," he sings : — 

" I love Burdigala ; I worship Rome. 
She has the citizen, — the Consul, both. 
Here is my cradle, — there my curule-chair." 

The poems of Ausonius are interesting and 
valuable as a mirror of contemporary persons 
and events (including among the persons himself 
prominently). They are a picture of his life and 
times and character. Even his genealogical tree 
has been constructed out of them alone, so full 
are they of family reminiscence. In his worldly 
wisdom, knowledge of affairs, cheerfulness of dis- 
position, humane piety, and even in his homely 
poetry, he seems like a kind of Franklin of his 
time. 

We cannot say, as a general thing, in what 
order the poems of Ausonius, or the several 



298 



THE RIVER MO SEE 



classes of them, were composed. The first that 
we encounter, on opening the little book which 
contains his literary remains, is a collection of 
Epigrams, which, requiring the principal atten- 
tion of the pruning and purging editors, probably 
date from the period of his Greek study and his 
days of grammatical teaching. Here is one lively 
specimen : — 

4 ' Poor Dido found but little rest, 
By neither of her spouses blest ; 
She flies, because the first was dead, 
And dies, because the second fled." 

Next comes a pleasant little group of pieces 
entitled " Ephemeris ; or, How to Spend a Day." 
In this occurs the beautiful morning prayer, be- 
ginning : — 

" Omnipotent ! Thou who to me art known 
By thoughtful worship of the mind alone ! " 

For want of space we pass over a group of 
" Parentalia," or domestic poems, and come to 
" The Play of the Seven Wise Men," in which 
the seven successively come upon the stage, and 
expound briefly, each his special saying. Here 
is a specimen : — 



AND ITS OLD ROMAN POET. 



299 



CHILON. 

" With aching back and weary eyes I sit, 
Waiting for Solon to expend his wit. 
Heigh-ho ! how long these men of Attica 
Talk, and how little, after all, they say ! 
Here 's one who in three hundred verses, now 
Hath spoke a single sentence ; and I trow, 
, He grudges even now the sight of me. 
I am the Spartan Chilon, whom you see. 
With our well-known Laconic brevity, 
To you our Gnothi seanton (Nosce te), 
The precept, ' Know thyself,' fit to descend 
From Heaven, and writ at Delphi, I commend. 
Sore is the labor, sweet the fruit, to know 
The line o'er which thy genius cannot go ; 
To meditate from dawn to set of sun 
On each least thing thou doest and hast done. 
All duty, honor, shame, doth this comprise, 
In this our scorned and slighted glory lies. 

I 've done. Farewell. Remember Nature's laws. 
I go, not waiting your applause." 

Of the twenty Idyls, the tenth is entitled " Mo- 
sella." This " erudite and elegant panegyric," as 
the editor of the Delphin edition calls it, is one 
of the few remaining specimens of its kind ; in- 
deed, it is, perhaps, the only (or, at the very least, 



300 



THE RIVER MOSEL 



the first) example of a whole piece, purely and 
simply devoted to the description of Nature, of 
rural life and scenery, to be found in old Latin 
poetry. It contains many passages which have 
the minute mirroring of Crabbe, and many that 
wear the sunny light and remind us of the genial 
picturesqueness of Goldsmith. 

The "Mosella" contains four hundred and 
eighty lines ; and yet, so full of the subject was 
the old man's mind, that more than once, after 
having poured out two or three hundred verses, 
he breaks out, as if he had been only thinking all 
the time of undertaking the attractive theme, into 
the exclamation that one day, if he ever gets leis- 
ure, he will sing the glorious river as it deserves ! 
The very copiousness of its waters seems to have 
communicated something of a like inexhaustible 
fluency to his thought. 

The opening of the poem, describing the au- 
thor's return (probably from one of the Imperial 
campaigns) to the region which reminds him so 
vividly of his native scenery and city and 
stream, presents a striking glimpse of the min- 
gled lights of history and landscape: — 



AND ITS OLD ROMAN POET. 



3d 



"In nebulous light I crossed swift Nava's stream, 
Saw the new walls of ancient Bingen gleam ; 
Where Gallia once matched Latian Cannae's day, 
And piles of dead, unwept, unburied lay. 
Thence through lone forest depths my journey ran, 
That showed no trace of civilizing man ; 
O'er dry Dumnissus; then where with sweet sound 
Perennial fountains murmur all around 
Roman Tabernae ; and through fields where now 
The Sauromatian colonist drives his plough. 
At length I see upon the Belgian line 
The castle famed of glorious Constantine, 
Nivomagus ; and here a purer air 
Breathes o'er the fields ; and now, serene and fair, 
The face of Phoebus to the wondering sight 
Renews Olympus clothed in purple light. 
No longer vainly the bewildered eye 
Through the green gloom of branches seeks the sky ; 
No more the ruddy ray and liquid light 
Of the free heavens are hid by envious night. 
The lovely light that smiles o'er hill and stream 
Brings back the scenes that live in childhood's dream ; 
My own Burdigala's dear features lie 
Imaged in all I see to memory's eye ; 
The villa roofs that crown the craggy steeps, 
And overhang the valley's winding sweeps ; 
Hills green with vines, and at their feet the swell 
And low-voiced murmur of thy waves, Moselle." 

" Mosella," — the key-note has been struck, — 



302 



THE RIVER MOSEL 



the key-word that unlocks the poet's soul has 
been spoken, — and he breaks forth in the apos- 
trophe which opens his proper theme: — 

" Hail, O illustrious River ! renowned for thy fields and thy 
farmers ! 

River that washest the walls of the Belgae's Imperial city ! 
River, whose ridges are crowned with the vine's odoriferous 
clusters ! 

River, whose meadows are clothed by the grass with an emerald 
verdure ! 

Ships on thy bosom thou bearest, — a sea ; a river, thou rollest 
Down from the uplands; a lake, in the crystalline depth of thy 
waters ; 

Vet like a rill from the mountains, with silvery foot canst me- 
ander ; 

Nor can the coldest spring yield such refreshment as thine. 
River and brooklet and lake art thou, and fountain and ocean, — 
Ocean, with ebb and flow of its multitudinous waters. 
Peaceful and placid the speed of thy current ; no howling of 
storm-winds 

Vexes thy brow ; no dark rocks lie lurking to anger thy bosom. 

Oft, in the bend of thy current, thou lookest across, and with 
wonder 

Seemest to see thy own waves gliding backward, and then for a 
moment 

Thou, in thine own proper course, (so dreamest thou haply?) 
dost linger ; 



AND ITS OLD ROMAN POET, 303 



Yet with no slime-gendered reeds thou lazily linest thy borders, 
Nor on thy shore in mud and ooze dost thou sluggishly stagnate, 
But all unsoiled and unwet come the feet to thy silvery margin. 

Go, and with Phrygian mosaics inlay thou the floor of thy mansion, 
Till like the face of a mirror the marble-paved corridors glisten ! 
I, meanwhile, despising what wealth and luxury offer, 
Wonder at Nature's works, where never a miserly boaster, 
Not even Poverty, grasps, in the joy of the lavish creation. 
Silvery sand and pure pebbles adorn this clean floor of the river, 
And it retains in remembrance no trace of the last passing foot- 
print. 

Down through the crystalline depths of the waters we see to the 
bottom. 

They have no mysteries to hide ; and, as in the clear upper 
heavens 

Ranges the eye far round through all the circling horizon, 
What time no breath of wind shakes a leaflet or ripples the water, 
So in the blue heaven below the eye freely ranges or lingers, 
And in the azure-light chambers sees manifold shapes of rare 
beauty ; 

Plants that gracefully wave in the silent sway of the waters, 
And through green groves of moss glittering jewels of sand. 

Lo ! how the slippery swarms of fishes that chase one another 
Through the green labyrinth there, in and out, in perpetual motion, 
Charm and bewilder at once the eye of the wearied beholder! 
All the names and the tribes of the numberless finny creation, 
Whether of those that swim down stream on their way to the 
ocean, 



304 



THE RIVER MOSEL 



Or those that follow each other up-river in shoals never-ending, 
Who can describe ? — 'T is forbid by Him to whom is com- 
mitted 

Lordship the Second in rank, and the Sceptre of Sea-rule, the 
Trident." 

He devotes, however, no less than seventy-five 
lines to the enumeration of the scaly inhabitants, 
for several of which even the German commen- 
tators seem unable to find any modern name, — 
" the Mace, tender of flesh and stuffed full of 
bones," — " available only six hours for table use " ; 
"the Trout, with purple-starred back " ; "the Gray- 
ling, with the swiftness of a shot eluding the eye 
of the beholder " ; " the Barbel, ennobled by the 
weight of years" ; "the Salmon " ; "the Lamprey" 
(both fully described) ; " the inhabitant of ponds 
whose Latin name provokes laughter, — Lucius, 
the Pike " ; and 

" Never shalt thou be forgotten, O Perch, the delight of the 
table "; — 

then the fish that " is not yet a Salmon, and 
cannot be called a Trout, .... but is neither 
and both " ; — the Gudgeon, " whose length is 
not more than the breadth of two hands, with 
the thumbs not included." 



AND ITS OLD ROMAN POET. 305 



From the denizens of the flood he now turns 
to the shore-population, and describes the joys of 
the vintagers : — 

" Yet not to human hearts alone the charms 
Of this fair region yield delight ; no less 
Do rural Satyrs (I can well believe) 
And lovely blue-eyed Naiads mingle here 
Their sports along thy banks ; and if, perchance, 
Goat-footed Pans intrude with wanton glance, 
They spring across the ford, and, helplessly 
Beating the waves beneath their snowy feet, 
Alarm their trembling sisters in the stream. 

Panope, too, ofttimes, the nymph of the flood, when, in friendship* 
Joined with the Oreads, she slyly has stolen the grapes from, 
the vine-hills, 

Flies from the Gods of the pastures, the Fauns, the riotous, 
teasers ! 

But what was never seen by human eye 
I may but half unfold. Veiled by the flood, 
With sacred awe I leave its mysteries ! 
Beauty enough invites our open gaze ! 
When the blue stream mirrors the shady hill, 
And all the waters now with green are dyed, 
And in the waves the mimic clusters glow, 
And then when Hesper leads the Evening in, 

What an enchanted world the boatman's eyes 

H O 

Behold beneath him, trembling in the deep ! 



306 



THE RIVER M OS EL 



There, in the liquid glass, the bending forms of the oarsmen, — 
Shadowy oarsmen, dipping alternate in time with the real, 
Only in inverse position, are seen gliding merrily onward. 
How the illusive picture delights the charmed eyes of the young 
folk! 

Such the ecstatic delight of the child when the nurse at the 
toilet 

Holds up before her the glass and shows her her shadowy 
sister, 

Looking so real to her — as if 't were her double incarnate — 
That she must needs imprint a kiss, in her wondering trans- 
port, 

On the blank metal that stares with a cold, unanswering sur- 
face/' 

Then come thirty or forty lines describing with 
a curious minuteness the various ways in which 
the boys catch fish from the beach or the rocks. 
The author elaborates the subject with the enthu- 
siastic interest of one who had just dropped upon 
our planet. He must have witnessed, if not prac- 
tised, such sports in boyhood on his native Ga- 
rumna, and yet he looks on here with as fresh 
a delight as if it were all new to him, — as un- 
doubtedly it was, — in hexameter verse. Words- 
worth has a similar way of spinning out, at times, 
a simple matter into a long chant, as when he 



AND ITS OLD ROMAN POET, 



307 



calls tea " the beverage drawn from China's fra- 
grant herb," and says that a child caught cold in 
this wise : — 

" The winds of March, smiting insidiously, 
Raised in the tender passage of the throat 
Viewless obstruction." 

Now see how Ausonius relates the process of 
hooking a fish : — 

" When, of the snare all unconscious, the greedy and swift-dart- 
ing swimmers 

Snap at the bait with their jaws, and then painfully all of a 
sudden 

Feel in their wide-open throats, too late, the merciless iron ; 
Quivering, they own themselves caught, and answering now the 
crisp tremor 

Borne through the vibrating line, the rod bends down to the 
water. 

Then — not an instant's delay ; with a whiz of the line o'er his 
shoulder, 

Out on the grass the youngster nimbly has landed his victim, 
There to gasp and to die by the merciless shaft of Apollo. " 

But sometimes, when drawn up a steep rock, 
the fish flaps back into the river, and then the 
boy plunges after him, — and the admiring author 
must devote several lines to this spectacle. 



3 o8 



THE RIVER MOSEL 



" But what end can I find of celebrating thy waters, 
Blue as the blue of the ocean, that mirrors the heavens, O 
Mosella ! 

Lo ! what innumerable streams come down, either side, from 
the mountains, 

Eager to mingle their waters with thine ! full fain would they 
linger 

In the fair regions they pass ; but a yearning far mightier bids 
them 

Baptize themselves into thy name, and bury themselves in thy 
bosom. 



Yea, majestic Mosella ! had Smyrna but lent thee her singer, — 
Mantua bequeathed thee her bard, — not Simois, then, nor 
Ilyssus, 

Nay, nor Tiber himself should go before thee in glory ! 
Mighty Rome — thy forgiveness ! Far from thy greatness be 
envy ! 

Ever my prayer is : May Nemesis (strange to the tongue of the 
Latin) 

Guard thee, of Empire the seat — guard, Rome ! thy illustrious 
Fathers ! 

Hail ! O Mosella, to thee, great parent of fruits and of 
peoples ! 

Thee an heroic nobility graces, a youth of tried prowess, 
Thee an excellent speech that rivals the Latian tongue. 
Nay, to thy sons has been given by Nature, with earnest, grave 
faces, 



AND ITS OLD ROMAN POET. 



309 



And with refinement of manners, the deep- welling joy of the 
Spirit. 

Not old Rome alone can point with pride to her Catos ; 
Nor was the model of truth and integrity buried forever 
With the just Aristides, sometime the glory of Athens. 
But why thus, with slack rein, do I measure the glorious arena, 
Lessening thy praise by comparison, proudly my true love con- 
straining ? 

Hide for a season the harp, O Muse, when the chords that now 
ring out 

Faintly these closing numbers shall vibrate their last, and grow 
silent. 

Happy shall come hereafter an hour of leisure and quiet, 
When the mild sunshine of age shall smile on my still occu- 
pation ; 

Then may I freelier renew the song of the days of old glory, 
Sing of my country's renown, and the deeds of the Belgian 
sires. 

Then the Pierian maids shall weave with a delicate distaff 
Threads of a finer web, and purple shall grow from our 
spindles. 

But let first the task I have now undertaken be ended ; 
Let me sing to the close the praise of the glorious river, 
Follow the sweep of its tide rejoicing along the green meadows, 
Till in the waves of the Rhine it shall come to receive conse- 
cration ! 

Open, O Rhine ! thy blue bosom ! Spread wide thy green flut- 
tering garments 



3io 



THE RIVER MOSEL 



To the new stream that with thine would mingle its sisterly- 
waters ! 

Nor does it bring thee alone the wealth of its waters ; but 

stately- 
Sweeps from the walls of the city, the princely that once saw in 

triumph 

Father and son return from Nicer and Lupodunum. 



Proud grew the laurel and high from the field of the freshly w r on 
battles ; 

Soon other lands may bear others ; but ye, as brother and 
sister, 

Roll in majesty on to the purple expanse of the ocean ! 
Fear not, O glorious Rhine ! that thy name and thy fame shall 
be lessened ! 

Far from the host be all envy ! Thy name and renown are im- 
mortal ! 

Sure of thy glory, then open thy wide arms to welcome thy 
sister ! 

Thus I sang, who, sprung from the race of the ancient Vivisci, 
Lately in friendly alliance a guest at the Belgian hearth- 
stone, 

Roman Ausonius am named, and claim as the home of my 
fathers 

Gallia's uttermost limits, and where the high Pyrenean 
Mountains o'erhang Aquitania, serene land of free-hearted 
people. 



AND ITS OLD ROMAN POET. 



3" 



Such the strains I boldly, though modestly, swept from my harp- 
strings. 

Poor though the tribute, 't was fitting, O Muse, that these hands 

should this offer 
Out of my poverty, gratitude's gift to the beautiful river. 
Not for fame I hanker ; I only beg for forgiveness ; 
So many hast thou, O glorious stream, whose footsteps have 

wandered 

Round the waters divine that are blessed by Ionian maidens, 
And on whose foreheads hath sprinkled her cool drops the fair 
Aganippe ; 

But for me — if so much shall yet linger of fire poetic — 
When to my native Bordeaux, youth's home and of age the still 
refuge, 

Pater Augustus and also his son, whom of all I hold dearest, 
Grant me once more to return, content with Ausonian fasces 
Graced, and with curule honors, — and when at length the old 
master 

Now is dismissed and rewarded with thanks for long years of 
true service, — ■ 

Then to the stream of the North will I pour out a worthier 
tribute ; 

Sing of the cities, whose walls are washed by thy calm-gliding 
waters ; 

Sing of the castles that frown above thee with time-wasted 
turrets ; 

Sing of the fortresses, built of old for a refuge from danger ; 
Used by the prosperous Belgians now, not for forts, but for gar- 
ners ; 



312 



THE RIVER MOSEL. 



Then, to the farthest lands and in tongues and in songs of 

strange peoples, 
Wide shall be wafted thy name and thy glory, O horned Mo- 

sella ! * 

* Horned, or horn-bearing (in allusion of the river's windings), is applied 
to the river-god Tiber by Virgil, /En. VIII. 76, 77 : — 

" Thee evermore will I praise, evermore with my gifts and libations, 
Honor thee, horn-bearing river and King of Hesperian waters." 




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